Track-by-Track: Falooda Vocalist Loverman Discusses ‘Demo 2024’

Musical inspiration can come from anywhere, something noise-funk band Falooda could certainly confirm. The Athens, Greece band recently released their Demo 2024 EP featuring four new tracks. The band is inspired by the falooda dessert, a cold treat popular in India and Iran. It’s typically made with rose syrup, milk, and vermicelli, a traditional type of pasta, milk, and sweet basil seeds. The dessert is a metaphor for the band’s focus on musical experimentation. It represents the different musical elements and personalities that shape their sound. Falooda comprises previous Kalong, The Great Black Shark, and N’Cheezed members. The latter has been a staple of the Athens underground rock scene for some time.

While their band name might be a tad unserious, the band itself takes their music very seriously. Thematically, their central focus zeroes in on digital dystopia, social angst, injustice, dealing with personal loss, and condemning war. In an age of geopolitical conflict, fake news, and digital hysteria, sociopolitical issues are very important to the band members. People nowadays are shaped by so many societal factors, and as a band, Falooda feels that it’s important to speak out on current events.

Falooda lead singer Loverman joins us today for a special Track-by-Track rundown of Demo 2024. He discusses the recording process and the ingredients and inspirations behind each track.

“We don’t consider ourselves a ‘studio band’ in a sense that we compose songs meant to be played live. Thus, the recording of the demo was live in order to grasp this feeling of presence, so will be our upcoming LP. Only the vocals were recorded later on.

“One moment that is worth mentioning is the process of recording ‘Disaster Recovery’ where we recorded everything in our rehearsal space. First we recorded the drums with a single microphone. Then I plugged the synth in a sound card in order to record on top of it. It was a fun process for sure!

“As for the lyrics, I sing along with the melody and start throwing in words that ‘match’ the tempo. Later on, I take notes, re-listen to the music, and fill in the gaps according to the concept of what the song is talking about. Usually I have a few concepts in my head and the song itself will reveal which lyrical theme suits best.

“Our Demo gives people a taste of what Falooda sounds like or where we’re headed towards to, aesthetically. Our goal is to record a full-length album and hopefully mange to organize an international tour.”

Falooda “Orizuru” single artwork

1. “Orizuru 折鶴:

“The song tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, the girl that became the symbol of innocent people who lost their lives due to the atomic bomb. Sadako was two-years-old when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945. Neither herself nor her family died as a result of the explosion, but in January 1955 she was diagnosed with leukemia. She set herself a goal of folding 1,000 paper cranes, which according to the legend would grant the folder a wish. Sadako fell short of her goal, having folded only 644 before her death, at 12 years of age.

“Her friends completed the remaining 356 paper cranes and buried them all with her. At the same time, they published all of her letters so the world would know her wish for world peace.

“On the bottom of her monument it’s written, ‘This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world.’”

2. “Boolean Religion”

“The song talks about technology becoming one with religion and worshiped as such, which translates into a binary language of ones and zeros to the machine. The worshipers become so obsessed with the machine to the point that they don’t realize how it is slowly killing them.”

Falooda “Boolean Religion” single artwork

3. “Bottleneck”

“‘Bottleneck’ was conceived in one take! It just popped up, if I may say so. The climax feels like an explosion, so do the lyrics, as it talks about the capacity of an application or a computer system, which becomes limited by a single component. Like the neck of a bottle slowing down the overall waterflow.”

4. “Disaster Recovery”

“‘Disaster Recovery’ is about the ability to restore access and functionality. The track works as a soundscape as the process potentially fails, or not, to recover the system-it is up to the listener to interpret and decide.”

Falooda ‘Demo 2024’ album artwork