About
Bio
I'm Gaurav Krishnan & my alter ego is Ghost Intent. I'm a multi-genre musician, producer, composer, DJ & singersongwriter from the heart of Mumbai, India. Music has been in my blood and a part of me ever since I was a kid. I used to record songs I liked off the radio on to cassette tapes and collect them and distribute them to my friends. I did the same with burning CDs and perhaps my favorite present in my teens was getting my first iPod Nano when I went on a family vacation to Hong Kong & Thailand. It was a gift that my late uncle gave me (RIP dear Ganesh uncle).
I was raised in a conservative South Indian family, where my parents couldn't understand & had never heard Rock music and my interest in learning the guitar & piano in school (St. Mary's ICSE) was turned down by them because they thought it would interfere with my studies.
During studying for my undergrad degree i.e. my B.E. in IT Engineering from MIT, Manipal(India's MIT) I was chosen as the resident in-house DJ of the most frequented pub in the township called DeeTee. I played diverse genres of music at the pub for three years straight, on alternate nights every week, receiving a small 500 Rs. salary per night. This was 2009-2012 and it was my first part-time job & those were formative years in my journey & tryst with music. Those surreal nights DJ-ing at the pub setting the place alight and driving the mood & the vibe for all the pub-goers were electric during those glory days in college, and it was a huge part of my development learning to mix songs from one track to the next keeping tempo, mood, vibe, feeling and crowd requests in mind.
I only thought about pursuing music in my late twenties, when I had the means, but I was (and have been since) balancing it with several jobs as a writer/journalist. I initially only thought of venturing into music as a creative release, being a highly creative person by nature, and to see what I could do musically, but it was only in my time away from my day jobs because the music thing wasn't and hasn't started paying me enough to quit my writing career.
After a slew of jobs after I graduated, one failed business venture, and buying and learning the guitar & piano at 27, I gravitated to producing music only in late 2019 after doing a short 10-day course, which further left me with more room to explore & learn, but I was determined that it wouldn't stop me from releasing music. Music has always been about passion and self-exploration for me and I always had this notion in me to explore my diverse musical inclinations from one genre to the next and do things differently and who knows, pioneer something new or at the least find my own musical style and voice.
I'm an artist influenced by various genres from the Blues, to Classic & Alternative Rock, Grunge, Trip Hop, Folk, Electronica, Downtempo & several others and I keep innovating & exploring different genres with each of my releases. Some of my favorite artists Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Junior Kimborough, & B.B King in the Blues, Rock legends J.J. Cale, Neil Young & Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix & my guitar hero and one of Folk music's greatest Bert Jansch to name a few, inspired me to pick up the guitar while Radiohead, Tom Waits, Brian Eno & Max Richter pushed me to also learn the piano. Emerging Electronic & Downtempo artists in the 2010s like Thievery Corporation, Zero 7, Bonobo, Four Tet, Burial, Tor, Max Cooper, Christian Loffler & others got me wanting to produce & experiment with exploring electronic soundscapes, which I eventually did.
There's this quote by Thom Yorke in an interview saying "technology and how you use it are also part of your art," and that was very relevant for me as I began scratching the surface with basic MIDI gear and trying to push my DAW to substitute for the lack of synths, samplers, & sequencers, which are rather expensive. It was a bit of a progressive journey as I had much to learn when it came to producing different genres, but I took it as a challenge and began putting music out there despite the apprehensions and lack of knowledge and proficiency, using the tools and skills I had.
My first release was in 2020 with an EP called "Transit" which was an experimental Electronica/Ambient effort influenced by the theme of all my travels across India until that point ,and the idea of making a theme for music-to-motion and the state of being in Transit, I then released an EP "Lost Cinema" on a German label called Eskapaden Musik, which was an Instrumental Hip-Hop/Lofihiphop/ Boom Bap beattape for my Boom Bap and Lofi phase and the intersection of my love of Old Hollywood cinema.
I then put out more music in 2021 with a single called "A Bouquet Of Stars", which was my first exploration with lyrical sampling for an Electronica track followed by "Blues By The Bay" an experimental beattape & a couple of B-side releases in "Tides" & "Stereo Peace" which were some tracks I made blurring between Electronica & Downtempo. I shifted back to a series of Boom Bap beattapes in late 2021 with my "Bombay Boom Bap" series that are my take on Bombay city and the Bombay Hip-Hop scene with my spin on some Boom Bap/Instrumental Hip-Hop beats in "Vol.1", "Vol.2", Vol.3", with "Vol.4" being the latest as of 2023 . 2023 saw me shift to exploring UK Garage with "Near Dark, Near Light" an LP inspired by UK Garage artist Burial & a B-side called "The Indian Sun", followed by a more Ambient & piano-driven LP in "Music For Motion", inspired by Brian Eno's work and his book which I was reading.
With every steady release I'm innovating & improving my sound. And its a slow and gradual journey for me as well, as I grow and become a more skilled and proficient producer.
I'm also looking to release my debut singersongwriter acoustic guitar album which has been in the works but that's on the horizon when I finalize the songs I've written and have enough recording gear and soundproofing in my bedroom studio, to record and produce myself.
Composing for film is another aspect of music I'm really into and have been at for a couple of years, given my inclinations to filmmaking and the intersection of music and cinematography & film scoring in general. I've been influenced by composers like Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, Ramin Djawadi, Michael Giacchino, John Williams and of course A.R. Rahman.
However, DJ-ing continues to be a huge part of my life and I've been playing sets all over India in pristine scenic beach and mountain destinations by gate-crashing shacks and cafes with my DJ controller and asking the management there to let me play. I've played in places like Goa, Gokarna, Kerala, Himachal & Pondicherry . I've played at places like Namaste Cafe & other shacks in Gokarna(a place I've visited 7 or 8 times), a few sets at a shack in Goa run by a sound engineer from Delhi(I forget the name), at Varkala cliff and Odayam beach in Kerala, a couple of cafes near the Jari region in Himachal, and some beach resorts in Pondicherry.
I also curate and regularly put out 1 playlist every week on my YouTube channel @1PlaylistAWeek after a couple of years of using Spotify releasing 1-2 Spotify playlists a month, on my personal Spotify account, or on the Playlists section of this website. Although I'm a very humble person by nature, it's safe to say that I have great taste in music.
You can explore my music at length on the home page & on this website & listen to my story and be part of my journey & I hope it inspires you to take a leap into something you love. In my experience- "It's never too late to start doing the things you love" (no matter what your background or current status is) - you just have to start.
"Music sets the soul in motion" - Gaurav (Ghost Intent)
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