In between love, heartbreak, and melancholy: Arya Salvi’s latest EP ‘Iltija’

Arya Salvi, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter, and producer-engineer from Aurangabad lives by the quote “You didn’t come this far, only to come this far.” He has been singing and playing the drums since he was 4 years old. He is recognized as a notable Live Sound Engineer, being a virtuoso in the rock genre. Along with this, Salvi is also a multi-instrumentalist and has worked as a producer-engineer for several other artists. Currently based in Pune, he gained popularity because of his work in his band ‘Offbeat-India.’ One of the band’s records was also featured on the ‘Rock in India’ playlist on Spotify.

When asked to tell his story, he said “There is so much grinding and struggles we need to go through to eventually become what we want to,” while talking about shifting from his hometown to Mumbai, and later to Pune. His releases ‘Dil Ki Zameen,’ ‘Doori,’ and ‘Iltija’ crossed over 10,000 streams over all platforms within the first week of the release. He has also been featured in Rolling Stone India.

His latest EP ‘Iltija’ is an amalgamation of 4 songs with genres ranging from rap rock, lo-fi pop, hard rock, and soft rock. Released on the 19th of August, the EP contains “sad love songs” that narrate the story of a breakup/separation progressing in stages relating to how the person feels. He has tried to match the sonic of his earlier release ‘Insaaf’ with his band in ‘Iltija.’

When asked about his influences for the album, Salvi said that the story goes back to the album art that speaks of a man sitting beside a projector trying to depict his life with his other half. “I was really excited for how we could put it down into songs, and then we started working in themes and created the entire EP,” he added. The EP was composed, engineered, and produced by Salvi with Akshay Manjramkar helping him with the lyrics. The latter also rapped for the track ‘Jane Kyun.’ The EP further has Siddharth Kota on the guitar solo in ‘Aye Khuda.’ With the whole process taking 6 months, it was recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered in Salvi’s bedroom studio.

The artist wishes to collaborate with artists like Prateek Kuhad and Ed Sheeran in the future.