Sudan’s Latest Single 'spection 2.0' Is An Exhilarating Reflection On His Debut Year

When sudan dropped his debut album, sudan?, last year, he immediately became a Homegrown favourite. The Mumbai-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist had spent almost a decade mixing and mastering other people’s works before diving headfirst into his own project. The resulting self-produced, self-written, and self-mastered 13-track album was a vulnerable, electro-pop journey inwards, effectively announcing sudan as an exciting new voice in the Indian music scene. 

In the year that followed, sudan’s career began to bloom. He reached 20,000 followers on Instagram, performed at Lollapalooza, gained a loyal following, and much more, finally getting recognition for his creative talents after years behind the scenes. And yet, he’s still in motion, continuing to grow, change, and strive for more. 

His latest song, 'spection 2.0' is a reflection on the year that followed the release of his debut. The song directly builds off the first two tracks from sudan?, 'intro' and 'spection', mirroring them in structure, sound, and theme while adapting them to reflect his current state of mind.

sudan? opened with a spoken word “intro”; twinkling pianos laid down the carpet for sudan to introspect on his dreams and the musical journey he was about to embark on. “It’s been a while since we last spoke, been running high with these wild hopes,” he confided, “took a while but I’m here now, took a while but you’ll see why.” The track acted as a promise for what was to come, a manifestation of his hope. 

spection 2.0 shares the same first line as intro, but then diverts to create what feels like a conversation between his past and present selves. Now, sudan has achieved some of his goals, but rather than falling for industry illusions or obsessing over milestones, he tries to look inwards. “I’m not falling for this fallacy, make way for the prophecy,” he says as the same ambient synths he used in spection swell behind him. He then ends his poetic musings with the words “Still playing with fire, still here now,” reiterating the excitement, hope, and future outlook he had expressed a year prior in intro. 

The pluck of a sitar creeps up in the back of the song’s mix, filling the space between the first and second sections of the song and leading into an epic instrumental breakdown. sudan brings electric guitars, a tabla, and ethereal synths in a beautiful sonic expression of his hope. He captures the exhilaration of a fast, late-night drive down the highway, the feeling you get in your chest when you stick your head out the window and shout. spection 2.0 is short, just a glimpse into sudan’s musicality now, but it shows how far he’s come and, more excitingly, how much further he can still go.

Follow sudan here.

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