Akhil Sahni was born and raised in New Delhi, but now makes London his home. The twenty-two year old’s debut arrived in 2021, entitled ‘1368’, and even from those early days you can hear the potential of an artist on a path to master the contemporary singer-songwriter. Not just for his heartfelt lyricism, and natural acoustic instrumental pairings, but in the pacing of his performance and the choices he makes to lead the melodies in a more emotive direction.
It’s been over four years since that first offering, and in that time Sahni has evolved, refining his penchant for writing and more deeply integrating his personal identity into the music, amassing thousands of plays from all over the globe as he did so.
With that backdrop in mind, I can introduce Puzzle, Sahni first EP, centring the artist around the intricacies and convolutions of manifesting love in the world today. In his words, “Puzzle is a 5-track journey through the quest for a love that feels just out of reach—a search for ‘the one’ that always seems to have one missing piece of the puzzle.”
He continues, “As modern relationships become more complex and layered with more variables than ever, you can meet the perfect person and yet still find that something’s in the way—distance, timing, family, circumstances… It’s never quite a complete picture.”
What Sahni project does is distill these ideas of overwhelm and entanglement and find the cherished simplicity the still drives its core. Led by the piano across the twenty minute runtime, he engages with soft, contemporary soundscapes, decorated with subtle harmonic experimentation, expressive guitars and drums to enforce the most poignant moments.
It becomes effortlessly timeless, the crooning intimacy layered with the heartfelt performance and earworm songwriting of recent years. With such strong themes and clear direction, this feels a particularly seminal piece for Sahni. The artist is able to command arrangements with an intentionality and purpose that you would usually only find much later in a career. Unquestionably then, this is a talent who should be watched with great expectations.