We want to make a full audio-visual experience for every track’. That’s what Hamza Bin Tahir tells me over the phone when I ask about PRESS X, an EDM band he has formed alongside Jazib Arshad. This isn’t something particularly new anymore. In the Instagram age, singles are now more often than not accompanied by music videos. For better or worse, the aesthetic that backdrops your music is important in creating an audience.

This is a challenge that PRESS X is well aware of, especially since lyric-less electronic music is still not a particularly popular genre in Pakistan. “One thing that as a music group we want to try to do is sort of make our music connect to the audiences,” said Hamza. “The electronic music space here is in a blooming state, there are some really good electronic artists here and their work is resonating with many new audiences. So similarly through our dark, groovy and hard hitting sound and also our visuals, we can hopefully reach a certain type audience and in the process elevate the scene.”

Fusion is a decent debut from the duo. It’s dark and groovy, with arpeggiated notes forming the backbone of the track, with a drop that features a number of pitch-bending synths. The percussion is suitably thumping and bombastic, and gives the track enough horsepower to keep your attention. Although I do wish the duo had taken some more risks and slapped more of a unique style here. Structurally the song maintains a predictable verse-chorus structure, and there’s nothing that particularly surprises here. But nonetheless, as a debut, it does what it does really well.

I spoke to Sajjad Saleem, the co-director and sole animator of the music video, about the process of making a 3D animated music video, and the challenges of animating everything yourself. ‘It took about 6 months in total from start to finish to make the music video’, he said. The number shocked me. Almost half a year for a four minute music video!? It seems enormous, given that most music videos are completed within 6 weeks. The real time was taken in creating the 3D environments and character animation, Sajjad explained. This took about 2 months. Many things he learnt from YouTube, or improvised on the fly.

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