Singer Aditi Ramesh’s latest song Filter Coffee talks about our constant need for validation on social media

“Filter coffee…better than cappuccino…I don’t want Americano…Give me that South Indian flavour,” croons Aditi Ramesh in her new single ‘Filter Coffee’, a song that manages to be both frothy and intense, exactly like a perfectly brewed cup of her favourite beverage. “The lyrics are very reflective of where I am in my head,” she says, talking about the song that centres around the constant need for validation, and attention, especially on social media.

“We are so unsure of ourselves and what we do,” she says, pointing out that this hunger for external recognition often leads to a cycle of anxiety. When she drinks a cup of filter coffee, however, she is able to shut out all those thoughts, something she reiterates in this song.  “It feels like a hug. I put a pause on those other things and know I am going to be fine,” says the Bengaluru-based musician.

This is Aditi’s first release after her 2021 song, ‘Shakti’, a clever take on the need for real equality and the problem with tokenism. “It is the biggest gap between releases that I have had,” says Aditi, adding that though she did not release anything in 2022, she has written more songs than ever before in this one-and-a-half-year-long hiatus, songs that are very different from the sort of songs that she has released before. “I think it was a year of exploring my sound and branching out into many different types of music,” she says. “I am in that phase where I know each song is going to surprise people.”

A musician in stops and starts

Aditi’s very first musical influence was the music that her parents played at home in the suburban American neighbourhood in Buffalo, NY she grew up: Carnatic and old film songs. While nobody in her family was particularly musical — “except an aunt who sings well but isn’t trained”, her parents noticed her interest in it and put her in classes.

Aditi, who is also a trained Carnatic vocalist, started piano lessons at the age of five, continuing with them till her 15^th birthday. Her induction into Carnatic music was not so quite so structured. “Erratic” she admits, with a laugh. “I would learn for a couple of years and then quit.”

Her early, somewhat uncomfortable relationship with Carnatic music has considerably shaped the way she approaches music today with her songs often drawing from both Carnatic and various Western traditions. “When I first started making music, I felt the need to put that (Carnatic music) in because I felt that I finally understood its value,” she says, pointing out that the building blocks of all forms of music are the same. “I really wanted to put it in a way that was accessible to everyone,” adds Aditi, whose family moved back to Bengaluru, India when she was 15.

The transition was hard, she admits, and though she settled down eventually, going on to attend law school at NALSAR, Hyderabad, life soon took over and the music slowly faded out. “I didn’t touch a piano for 10 years,” she says. “Maybe, once a year, I’d sing a couple of songs…that was it.”

Instead, she listened and listened a lot, introducing herself to more and more genres of music — the blues, a little bit of jazz, reggae, afro, world music and the folk singers of the 1960s and 70s, all of which would later influence her own music. “I think it is fun when you have so many influences, and they all come together to create something inspired by all these things but are uniquely you.”

An organic evolution

“Everyone has something that comes easily to them, and for me that was music,” believes Aditi, who started desperately missing her music when she moved to Mumbai in 2014, after graduation, to work as a corporate lawyer. “I wasn’t meant to work in a place like that. I didn’t fit in”

Within three years, she had quit corporate law, choosing instead to take up a lower-paying day job that was less demanding and would give her more time for her music. “I knew nothing about the industry and had no plan,” she says. “I just decided to be a musician.”

Since her foray into professional music in 2017 or so, Ramesh has garnered several great gigs, going on to play at festivals like the Nh7 Weekender, Vh1 Supersonic, Mood Indigo and the Echoes of Earth festival. “It all happened so organically,“ says Aditi, who released her first EP Autocorrect that year, which was listed as one of the top 10 EPs of 2017 by Rolling Stone India. She released another, Leftovers in 2019, chasing that up with her soothing ode to COVID-19-induced anxiety, ‘Heal’, her quirky single, ‘Sambar Soul’ in 2020 and the aforesaid-mentioned ‘Shakti’ the following year. “All my music is a function of where I am in life,” admits Aditi, who moved back to Bengaluru during the pandemic.

The next thing, Aditi is working on is some music in Tamil and English. Aditi also teaches music and produces and composes for commercial projects. And yes, she also plans to release her debut album next year, something she is enjoying taking her time with. “I’m trying to create for its own sake and not feel the pressure of having to just get something out. I don’t want to be in a race to release music.”