Naulo all the way

If Britney Spears can keep making music that keeps "hitting" the charts again and again, so will Nepalese singers

– certainly someday. No matter what, the buzz is already out: many have already started to say that it is high time Nepalese made it big on MTV or bagged a trophy at the Grammy’s. The quality of music has certainly shot up with the introduction of private FM channels. After all, it has already been so long since the southern border has been creating ripples on the Western airwaves, and it is high time we branded our music as the "in thing" soon.

That is way too far all right; But, certainly not too far off. Especially when Nepalese musical bands like Gahiro Teer and Dristhi have already launched their albums in the United States. Another such band is Naulo, which has been featured quite a few times in radio station like KCMU in Seattle and have been selling their albums through Amazon.com and MP3.com.

Naulo is a Seattle based Nepali band that wants to expand the bounds of Nepali music. Their first album is a musical experimentation whose product is a Nepali album with musical influences from around the world. "We strive to be original and meaningful, hence the name NAULO," says Bhushan Khanal, one of the two band members.

Naulo got started formally in late January 1999. Currently the band consists of Bhushan Khanal and Sunil Joshi, both who have significant backgrounds in Nepali music. Bhushan Khanal collaborated with three other members of Crossroads to create their first album Naya Mode. Sunil has been an invaluable contributor to Nepali music around the Pacific Northwest. The duo finally released their first album Sapani Ma on Oct 4th 1999, after working at it for more than 9 months.

Sapani Ma, the Naulo venture, includes nine tasteful tracks with beautifully mastered music. Naulo’s capabilities to produce excellent music can be seen in their softer melodious songs like Jhuke Ra and Bageko Teer. Their Nepalese touch can be actually felt in catchy track like Pokara Ko Bajar Ma. Remarkable is their song Maya Ko, with musical instruments that are normally not heard in usual Nepali pop songs – and yet sound so Nepali. Nevertheless, the flavour of other tracks as in Sapani Ma – the cover track — and Farki Farki might be linked to some previous songs of Crossroads, only that it sounds even better this time round.

However, Sapani Ma didn’t come easily. Naulo says that many "stumbling blocks" turned up in their endeavour. "The composition and recording was difficult and quite expensive…But we found that the promotion and sales of the album was the hardest part as there are no strong distribution channels we can use to sell such work in the US", says Bhushan Khanal. In fact, Naulo has had experiences like recording their songs in their own kitchen in Seattle.

Meanwhile, the support from the Nepalese community in the United States has been highly commendable. They helped Naulo sell their CD during the Dashain Festival in 1999 at various states—New York, Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Seattle and Portland. Even most of their album sales have been through the help of their friends located in the United States.

This certainly doesn’t mean that the band which is trying to make a name for Nepali music abroad can’t be heard in their own country. Not so long ago, they reached an agreement with Music Nepal that would enable the Nepalese audience to see the album in the local music stores. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long.

In their efforts to reach more people, Naulo has its own web site. Anybody who wishes to know more about the band can log on to www.naulo.com. And that’s not the end of Nepalese music in the United States. As Bhushan Khanal puts it: "We will not promise any thing right now but I will say that Sapani Ma will definitely not be our last album." Good work, Naulo...Keep it up!

Naulo kura-kani

SJS: How come you got this idea of launching an album in the United States? How did you get in touch with Sunil?

Bhushan: It was somewhat of an evolution and also a little chance. We both had a lot of interest in music...Sunil had been performing in Seattle for a few years. After I moved to Seattle, we started playing together during Nepali events and at parties, then last year when I bought some recording equipment, we took it much more seriously and that eventually led to an album.

SJS: How has Sapani Ma been received in the West?

Bhushan: It’s very well received...considering the limited promotion we have done. We knew that it would be popular within the Nepalese community but we were very surprised to see how well our friends from other countries accepted it too. We get a lot of people visiting our web site from all over the world, I got an e-mail from a person in Brazil who had heard one of our songs from the web and he sent a really nice thank you note written in Portuguese.

SJS: What is the difference you feel now and then (as a Cross Road-er) in your music?

Bhushan: Good music is good music no matter where you are in the world. We have now matured in our thinking, our musical tastes have changed (hopefully for the better) and we have grown as musicians so all of these permeate through our music to produce a product that is very different from our previous efforts.

SJS: Do you see the possibilities of Nepali music making it big in the global market soon?

Bhushan: Nepali music has a lot of charm and uniqueness that can make it very appealing outside Nepal, a role that is very different from that of Hindi music and we feel that area had not been explored very much. Nepali music has an incredible sense of rhythm and melody and we would like to do all we can to explore and promote it. I have a lot of respect for artists such as Sur Sudha who have helped familiarize our music to the rest of the world but I still feel that there is much more left to do.

SJS: What are your future plans, any more releases?

Bhushan: Music is our hobby, quite a serious one but unfortunately it is not a profession. Yes, we are working on new compositions and will continue to do so as much as we can. This time around we are trying to create something for a wider audiences, not just limited to Nepalis, and we are trying to embrace more of the traditional Nepali music.

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