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Weaving their cultures and creativity into a magnificent medley, two Bahrain-loving artists, reunited more than 10,000 kilometres from where they first met, to work together on a masterpiece of a music video, set to be released tomorrow.
Originally recorded by former Bahrain resident Ashwin ‘Xenai’ Shenoy and released last year, Ghost has garnered more than 37,500 streams and is set to get its own music video, courtesy of award-winning Bahraini filmmaker Deena AlSaweer (Instagram: deenafilm).
“I heard Ghost and immediately it inspired visuals and my imagination ran wild,” Deena told GulfWeekly.
She reached out to Xenai, saying that she would love to film a music video for the song, and they immediately began discussing visuals and scenes to convey the deeper meanings within the song.
“The world is going through a shift in consciousness and more people than ever before are becoming aware of not only what’s happening around the world, but also what is happening within themselves,” Xenai explained.
“A lot of my songs are about my journey of self-discovery, enlightenment and alienation which is why I think this song resonates with people.
“It talks of having a spiritual experience in the most mundane of places, and the disappearance of ego (becoming a ghost).
“Beyond the lyrics, even the way I produced it is unique, embracing both my Indian heritage, sampling the Hindustani Classical instrument Sarangi, and my Arab influence from childhood, playing the Oud.”
Originally written within a week in 2022, the song languished in Xenai’s creative vault for a year, before Grammy Award-winning engineer Kaushlesh “Garry” Purohit mixed and mastered it and it was finally released on November 17, 2023.
Since the day it was released, Deena had a feeling it would be a hit, and as the months crawled by and the streams rolled in, there was only one thing standing in the way of the music video finally being made: distance.
“I was in Ottawa and he was in California,” she explained.
Undeterred, the two planned and brainstormed, not knowing when they might be able to make it a reality, until Xenai was able to take a detour during a trip to visit his brother in Toronto, and ride the train to Ottawa.
“I coordinated the production with crew and actors here, and as soon as he arrived we shot everything within one day and he left the next day,” Deena added.
“It was important for me to protect the vision and cultural aspects of the music video, so just like the song, there are Middle Eastern, Western, and Indian elements in the video.
“We wanted to amplify all the influences that shape our style as artists. I cast talented actors that I’ve worked with before, wrote a script for an intro and outro scene to incorporate in the full music video - because when I was younger, music videos had a little bit of acting in them and the artists were just having fun with it!
“So, I wanted to do the same for Xenai and I’m grateful that everyone in the video is an incredible actor so they delivered each performance perfectly.”
Not one to rest on his laurels, Xenai is already hard at work on his ‘biggest project’ as he revs up for the release of his first-ever album – X Files Volume 1 [unidentified] – comprised of nine songs.
“X Files is the story of an alien in search of home where he comes to realise he was truly in search of himself,” he explained.
“The story and concept of the album come to reveal his true nature of who and what he really has been all along on this journey.
“It parallels my meditative journey and the spiritual discoveries that I have been having over the past 11 years and I’m finally at a place where I feel ready to share that part of my life in the form of a story that other people will be able to relate to.”
The album will be released on September 27 and the Ghost music video will be out tomorrow, July 26.
For more details, follow @xenai51 on Instagram.
