AIR APPARENT
AIR APPARENT is where Bollywood, Atlanta rap, rock, R&B and the strange little sounds I obsess over all get to belong in the same place.
I had been putting out singles for years, but I wanted to make something larger: a record that could hold the full arc of a relationship and the many versions of me making it.
I spent two and a half years making Chromatic through a pandemic, across multiple states and emotional states, with a long cast of singers, writers, producers and engineers.
The result was a 12-song album about identity, dreams, relationships and genre—and a reminder that the work gets better when I let other people into it.
Making Chromatic
Chromatic took two and a half years, in and out of a pandemic, across multiple states and more than a few emotional ones. I wanted the album to move the way a relationship does: the first rush, the games you play with each other, the lonely middle, and the point where you can finally see your part in what happened.
Most of the record was built one relationship at a time. I brought in singers and writers whose instincts I trusted, then produced around what each person made the song feel like. Some collaborations happened in rooms; others moved through email and DMs. All By Yourself came together almost entirely asynchronously with Krysta Youngs and Julia Ross, and somehow we finished the song in about a week.
The sound is the music I grew up around and the records I chased later: Bollywood and Hindu spiritual music at home, Atlanta hip-hop outside, Linkin Park in my headphones, then the negative space and detail I loved in James Blake and Flume. I tend to reach for minor keys even when I am trying to make something hopeful. Chromatic is where that contradiction started to feel like the point.
When I announced it, I called it music spanning all the colors of identity, journeys, dreams, relationships and genre. That still feels right. The better truth is that the album only exists because a lot of people cared about it with me.
Read the Chromatic launch postRead the AIR APPARENT interviewThe record and the remixes
The album’s voices include Meredith Bull on Razor, GESS on Bad for Me, and Krysta Youngs and Julia Ross on All By Yourself. Every collaboration changed what the song wanted to be.
A year later I reopened the sessions for Chromatic Remixed. Ruhde, Cosmicosmo, CAZZETTE, Jay Dixie and Alex Kade took the songs apart and found entirely different ways through them.
AIR APPARENT: Neil Sethi — artist, producer and songwriter; individual tracks are collaborative works. 100%: written with Teresa Tuan and Anh Le (ÊMIA); vocals by ÊMIA; mixed by Brent Kolatalo; mastered by Emily Lazar; video by Mood Infinite and Kelsey Tang. Selected Chromatic collaborators: Constance, Kcdeeya, Meredith Bull, GESS, Ellie Jones, ÊMIA, JAYA, Tyla Raé, Outerskies, Krysta Youngs and Julia Ross. Chromatic Remixed: Ruhde, Cosmicosmo, CAZZETTE, Jay Dixie and Alex Kade.