'till i see you': Ayush Sayalkar's Debut Ambient EP Is A Love Letter To Memory

Music and memory have always been partners in crime. The moments from your past are bookmarked through the songs you heard during that time. Even music that's new can take you to familiar places within yourself attaching itself to the previous chapters of your story. That sense of emotional geography is what filmmaker and sound artist Ayush Sayalkar taps into on 'till i see you', his debut ambient EP released via Kolkata-based label ONNO.

Best known for his work as a filmmaker and as one-half of the collaborative audiovisual duo Centre Penguin Effect, Ayush brings his sensitivity to texture and timing into a sonic form that feels both deeply cinematic and almost completely intangible. Across three tracks — 'where it all ends', 'heaven surrounds us', and 'if you could stay', he creates an ambient landscape that is made of and from memory.

The EP opens with what sounds like a distant horn, the kind you’d hear in an old railway station. 'where it all ends' slowly folds out from there, layering tone and breath until you're unsure if you’re listening to music or memory. In the track, Ayush isn’t trying to build a traditional ambient world with climaxes and catharsis; instead, he arranges fragments — half-heard voices, static, barely-there melodies, into something closer to reverie than song.

'heaven surrounds us' embodies its title with nothing but beauty and bliss at its core. The video for the track is a meditation on the emotional resonance of memory. Composed of recompiled footage from the wedding ceremony of his parents in his hometown of Nanded, Maharashtra, interwoven with fragments of other VHS archival clips, the film captures how memories return to us: textured, a little eroded but warm, and wrapped in feeling. Set to the EP’s most hopeful track, the visuals bloom in sync with the music’s gentle swell.

The final track, 'if you could stay', is perhaps the most emotionally lucid moment on the EP. There are distant voices here, possibly a tabla in the far reaches of the mix, and the soft presence of piano. The track is a sonic portrait of being overcome by the full weight of what it means to have lived, loved, and lost. Enveloping you in a tide of emotions that arrive all at once: grief, joy, longing, and immense gratitude, it’s a profound recognition that leaves you deeply moved by not just remembering everything but the fragile miracle of having been there at all.

There’s an intentional buoyancy to the EP that leans into atmosphere, layering textures that are more about sensation than structure. The work echoes the sensibilities of Ayush's visual practice project, eliciting potent imaginations through sound. Lingering like a soft afterglow, its gentle compositions capture not the exactness of memory, but the emotion that surrounds it. 'till I see you' embraces and embellishes the fragile act of remembering. These moments, at the time may have been complicated, unremarkable, or unclear, but through the lens of the EP, they seem perfect.

Follow Ayush here and watch the music video below:

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