Singled Out: Dymur

Keavin Wiggins | 05-31-2022

Promo photo courtesy Tag

Shillong, India based rockers Dymur have captured a lot of attention with their latest two singles, "Rape Culture" and "Child Abuse", and we asked Cornelius Kharsyntiew to tell us about both tracks. Here is the story:

Rape Culture

I formed Dymbur in the year 2012 and we've been playing progressive/djent metal since then. Dymbur is a word of 'Khasi' origin which translates to fig tree, and the 'Khasis' are an indigenous tribe that belong to the Northeastern part of India.

We released our debut album under the same genre in 2019, which gained quite an attention in the Indian Metal Scene, but we wanted to do more and push our music outside India. It was during the pandemic in 2020 when there was a worldwide lockdown, this made me wanted to think about how we should move ahead with the band and our music. To focus more on getting our music heard outside our country. I then had a word with my band mates and told them that we should try an incorporate our 'Khasi' traditional folk instruments with metal/djent music, which they eventually agreed on. I had to call in new band members to the lineup as well.

We then agreed to write songs on topics and social issues that we the people in India face on our daily lives and also on social issues that people don't talk about. And the first topic that we chose was 'violence against women in the country' and we named it 'Rape Culture' as we wanted a straight forward name about the song.

I started composing the song and arranged it to fit the tones and sound of our traditional instruments. It was quite a difficult task, especially to blend metal with our traditional instruments. I recorded this song at my studio in the month of April 2021 and it took us just 3 days to finish it since we had to shoot the video on that same month itself. The best part of the recording session was when we composed the intro which had the traditional instruments and the hums & melodies on the song. Andreas (Guitarist) and I did a good research on the topic before we composed the lyrics of the song.

The video shoot was completed in 3 days, the script was written by Dymbur and I edited it as well.

We wrote this song mostly to raise awareness on the topic, support the victims and also to try and highlight our culture and folk instruments into the international metal scene.

Child Abuse

Right after the release of 'Rape Culture' we did not want to step back, so we sat down together as a band and thought about a topic that matters the most to everyone and something that people don't talk about. We knew that child marriages and child labor are prevalent in India, we did some research and started writing the song 'Child Abuse'.

Composition wise, we wanted it to be different from 'Rape Culture' so we excluded the traditional intro hums on it and we added a synthwave feel to the intro fusing it with the 'Duitara'(the small string traditional instrument) and the Bom(traditional drum)

We wanted this song to be more aggressive so we added 'Rap' into the verses. This was like an experiment for us since we've never had Rap sections on our songs before. Laying down the bars for this section was one of the best moments during our recording session. I remembered staying up in the studio with Andreas till 12am while doing this.

The first verse of the song speaks about child marriage and the second verse speaks about child sexual abuse. We did a lot of research before laying down the lyrics on this one and the stats and figures mentioned in the song paints a clear picture of what is happening in the country. Certain lines in the song talk about Child Abuse that is prevalent in other cultures as well.

We felt that the chorus of the song needed to have a catchy tune along with the lyrics. Every day we see kids in India being forced into labor and no one bats an eye.

Hence the chorus lines "Everyday our kids they suffer, me and you we don't even bother."

We had a brainstorming session for a few days after the recording was done to work on the script for the video. It didn't take much time and it was easier for us to create a story line cuz the story is already mentioned in the lyrics.

Our intention with this song is not to point fingers at anyone but to raise awareness about Child Abuse and hopefully be able to create a behavioural change in the society.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch "Child Abuse" for yourself below and "Rape Culture" here