Music knows no boundaries... Music knows no limits... Music knows no restraints.
Music connects the souls regardless of where it is from. It is the one thing that never fails to reach out to people in every nook and corner and always presents itself as the perfect way to express one’s thoughts, emotions and feelings. It becomes the inspiration for one to go beyond the perspectives and ideologies that tend to thaw one’s soul and one’s passion.
It cannot be truer in the context of any nation more than Afghanistan... a nation that had been deprived of music by the Taliban regime and the only sound around was that of gunfire and bombs for so many years. For here, in spite of the new interim government stepping in and the doors of the world opening up, people still remain in fear and find it hard to open up easily to the arts.
But the world was shown a whole new side of Afghanistan’s music scene when three youths got together to form 'Kabul Dreams', Afghanistan’s first Indie Rock band. Relatively new and veiled from the commercial showbiz of mainstream music, this is a band that is fresh, new, and absolutely in sync with their genre, and for a lack of a better word, simply awesome! The three members of Kabul Dreams, Sulaymon Qardash (vocalist and guitarist), Siddique Ahmed (bassist) and Mujtaba Habibi (drummer), spent the war years outside of Afghanistan, growing up in Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Iran respectively. They met in Kabul at the end of 2008 and formed the band.
Since they hail from different regions of Afghanistan and speak different languages, they naturally chose to sing in English. All three of them had played musical instruments in their childhood and have had been strongly influenced by their early encounters with rock music. Their music seems to reverberate with the nostalgic tunes of many rock and roll bands. But the most striking and the most charming aspect about their music is the fact that it is far away from the political turmoil of their native land.
Leaving the bad memories of the war and the horrific past, these guys are decidedly apolitical and they sing with a passion and love for music. They sing songs of many a familiar themes but the theme of dream is a powerful subject that shines brilliantly in their lyrics. The power of imagination and how it enables one to escape is a poignant theme that hits the listener. At such a young age, these guys have a level of maturity in their music that is astounding. In the process of bringing out their debut album, Kabul Dreams is slowly building up a name of its own as a promising band. With a string of hits songs like “Crack in the Radio”, “This Night”, ”Sadae Man”, ”Can You Fly” etc these young guys are gathering their own group of dedicated fans. No wonder considering the arrival of a band that has a lot that needs to be discovered and revealed to the world.
-by Samriddhi Tanti