Prakhar Saxena, commonly known as CBZ, is a musician, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, film composer and sound engineer based out of Mumbai. CBZ has been releasing music since 2022 and has collaborated with various indie and rap artists. CBZ’s recent release is his debut EP ‘Piece of Mind: din aur raat’. The project consists of four tracks and talks about a day in one’s life. The EP aims to deliver a personal experience to each and every listener. Read more to learn about the EP, CBZ’s artistry and his future plans.
Tell us about the theme of your EP.
I call this project an experience because it projects a personal perspective to each listener, they have their daily routine full of moments of peace or thrill, it’s all about the personal perspective of the listener, but what I can tell you is you can listen to it while you sleep, while you wake up, wank, shit, brush your teeth, drive your bike, travel in a metro literally anytime anywhere and it will be an experience to listen to it every time.
The project is very cohesive, especially with the narrative, what was the thought process behind making it?
It’s my piece of mind that is translated to peace and thrill in this experience when you read the title says ‘PIECE of mind: din aur raat”, when you say it the piece sounds like “peace”, It’s all about perspective. Everyone has their daily routines and emotions, I really wanted everyone to have a personal experience, and emotions while they listen to this project, and like live the music in there. (this is a great excuse for not having vocals in most of the songs xD).
The EP is sonically quite beautiful. Tell us about the production process.
This was one of the smoothest and most natural processes of creation I went through, every song in it is live recorded, the guitar, bass guitar and synths are live recorded and I sampled up drums from super old songs and just flipped them because I don’t like to programme much on the Daw and I like raw sounds, all the instruments took merely 3-4 takes to record in each song because I wasn’t being selective with what I was playing, I just went with the flow and layered what
came to my mind and eventually I just made this and I had a lot of fun playing with all the instruments. The project has no vocals or lyrics as such, so it’s almost over the listener’s interpretation even if there’s anything.
You work as an engineer and musician for other bigger projects aside from your artistry. How do you transition between the two?
I usually wake up a day to freestyle something on my instruments and if I feel I can build the idea then and there I finish it up or else I dedicate weekends to finishing up ideas and have a fun day in my bedroom studio while working on the songs. On the other, I dedicate studio sessions to my clients to work on their projects.
What is your creative process like?
I like to keep things simple when I’m creating, I start by usually listening to drums and grooves, drum samples from old songs build a bass line with my bass guitar, and then that gives me something to play with on my guitar, keys and I like to use atmospheric sounds like natural ambiences and stuff like that.
What are your artistic inspirations?
My artistic inspirations come from observing others and things, I enjoy ‘people watching’ a lot! you get to learn about the world it’s a strange place to seek inspiration from but I get it all from there if I had to name some artists that inspire me I’m a big classic rock fan, I love Fleetwood Mac, Led Zepplin Pink Flyod and from this new age I really love Khruangbin, Men I Trust, Mac Demarco, The Marias etc.
Where do you see yourself in the coming years? What aspirations do you have as an artist?
I haven’t thought very much about it yet, but I do believe I’m here to spread happiness from my music and have an impact on the daily lives of everyone just through my music.
Tell us about your future plans.
The plan is and has been to create create and create nothing more, everything comes into place once you do that.
