Meet the duo who made background scores for 'Sherni' and 'Ray'

The musicians tell you how music adds to the charm of storytelling on screen

Music composers Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor are a unique twosome because they come from entirely different cultural and musical backgrounds. Naren is based in Mumbai and Benedict in England. They have been working remotely for as long as they can remember. Over the last decade, they have worked with many critically acclaimed filmmakers in the Indian film industry. They have composed the background score of films like — ‘Ship of Theseus’, ‘Killa’, ‘Udta Punjab’, ‘Newton’, ‘Sonchiriya’, ‘Chintu Ka Birthday’ and web series like ‘Paatal Lok’ and ‘Betaal’.

The duo’s most recent works in the drama-thriller ‘Sherni’, and ‘Ray’ has received accolades from both the audience and film industry insiders.

In a candid chat with Metrolife, Naren and Benedict talk about their journey together:

How has Covid treated the music industry? Were there any roadblocks that you faced?

Naren: There was a slowdown initially, and like every other industry, the music industry did get affected too, but things picked up slowly. People have been working remotely. Personally, we did not face much trouble, because we have mostly worked like this (remotely). Of course, there are roadblocks when you cannot physically meet the musicians and the technicians, but everybody got used to working remotely in the pandemic.

How did you meet? Have you always worked together from different locations?

Benedict: Officially we started working in 2009, on Anurag Kashyap’s ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots’. So, it has been close to thirteen years. We met in Mumbai when I was taking viola classes there. We work together from different locations but we spend a lot of time together too.

What is the difference between a composer’s approach towards composing a song and composing the background score?

Benedict: While composing a score we are thinking with the whole narrative arc of the film in mind. We may spend time both composing for individual scenes while simultaneously linking the entire musical tale together. This is an essential process for the film, but also really fascinates us. We really enjoy writing songs too, but they serve a very different purpose — a song or series of songs may punctuate the film, and affect and influence individual key moments in the film, but might not be with the narrative as a whole. Both are exciting creative processes in their own ways and serve their own purposes respectively.

You come from different musical backgrounds. Have you had any influence on each other?

Naren: There is always an influence when working with somebody who comes from a completely different background. You may not realise it, but it starts reflecting in your work.

Benedict: Definitely there has been an influence. I have been associated with Western music, and after meeting Naren, I got to know a lot more about synthesisers, and other electronic instruments.

Do you have more upcoming projects together?

Naren: We do have upcoming projects together but we cannot name them yet. We are working on three web series that are yet to be released.