Daily Times

Kashmir, the music group featuring an introverted bunch of musicians with Bilal Ali (vocalist), Vais Khan (lead guitarist), Usman Siddiqui (bass guitarist), Shane J.

Anthoney (drummer), Zair Zaki (rhythm guitarist), and Ali Raza (keyboardist), won Pepsi Battle of the Bands against finalist band Badnaam in 2017.But their debut album has not been released. Though they have continued to appear on various seasons of the music series since winning and have gone on to play quite a few live shows, their album is unreleased.

Bayaan, winners of Pepsi Battle of the Bands in 2018, on the other hand, released their record titled Suno at the fifth edition of Lahore Music Meet.

It does sound a bit murky, even more so when you remember that some of their songs were initially available for downloading from PBOTB website before they disappeared.

But as singer-songwriter from the group, Bilal Ali tells Instep in an exclusive conversation, Kashmir isn’t far behind when it comes to releasing their post-PBOTB album, Khwaab.

It does sound a bit murky, even more so when you remember that some of their songs were initially available for downloading from PBOTB website before they disappeared

“The album is coming out on February 29 with a music video to go with it,” says Bilal.

“The album has been ready for a while; we didn’t know how to release the album. Should we release singles or music videos? We’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve released a couple of music videos like Kaghaz Ka Jahaz’, Pari’, Khwaab’ with Parwana Hun’ being the last music video.

Now we plan to release the music video of Dhoop’ and the album, Khwaab, with it.

“As Bilal notes, the time to release the record is almost here since it’s been ready for the last two months. Though they might release more music videos afterwards, dropping Khwaab in the market is the main goal right now.

For the last three weeks, Bilal admits he’s been working on the album cover and the band has moved onto making PR packages now, working on t-shirts for the new album.

As has become the norm, t-shirts and even accessories are designed by bands. A Noori keychain from Peeli Patti Aur Raja Jaani Ki Gol Dunya still lives in my closet as does a Sikandar Ka Mandar t-shirt and Forever South (FXS) badge.