Born in Chandigarh, India & having lived in Canada & the United States for most of his adult life, Karan Arora known by his stage name “Curren Cupeesh” is the one and only holding it down for his city ‘the 172’ on an international stage. “Eyez Closed” is the recently released track to all the audience out there with a great vibe and truly he has done an amazing job.
The great thing about a song that works in the way that this does, is that the second time you listen it feels almost impossibly familiar. The rhythm and the organic instrumentation of hip hop brings with it a certain level of nostalgia – the all too brief yet rise of rap just more than a decade ago left a very specific string of memories in most of our minds. In this case, both the artist and the song brings something completely new to the table, though it’s soaked in a definite ocean of all that we know and love about hip hop.
To lay it out, the song emerges with a simple guitar riff, an organic and live sounding soundscape, followed shortly afterwards by a slightly distant, reverb soaked leading vocal. On paper, it sounds as if this is a hip hop or rap offering that leans in the more mellow direction of the spectrum. When you listen though, the melody has something instantly hypnotic about it. Certain inflections within have this emotional, amazing aura about them – this whole progression within each line of the verse is so simple, yet so captivating.
Then of course you get the lyrics, which aren’t all that easy to pick up on as the recording has such a dreamlike overall wash to it – you get lost in the general vibe before you get hung up on the story line. It’s a beautiful ambiance, the setup doesn’t quite express how effective the result is. To experience the song in the hazy basement of a bar somewhere on a tired yet hyped Friday night would be perfect. There’s a classic or even vintage feel to the ambiance, and when the vocal part begins it feels like the missing track from some huge album of the nineties. When you do finally catch those lyrics, the lines intrigue, they appear to explore uncommon territory, and that adds a lot of appeal.
