With his earlier tracks being aired in the US in 2021 and Pakistan in 2020, Singapore based Zephyr Khambatta launched his new Deep House track, My Religion Is Love, on January 21, 2022. (Deep House is a subgenre of electronic dance House music that has a typical tempo of 120 to 130 beats per minute, incorporating elements of jazz-funk and soul music.) Khambatta’s 3.13-minute instrumental track "expresses a lot of pent-up and eclectic feelings after a full year of writing music quietly and navigating the ‘new normal’ in Singapore,” he conveyed to Parsiana. "There’s pain in this music, but there’s also hope,” stated the YouTuber, recording artist, music producer, life coach and the founder of the 5,000 strong Facebook Group, Singapore Music as he slowly gains online influence.
Zephyr Khambatta with his recent music track and on his drums
Previously, his unique style of music had earned him positive feedback and coverage on music channels like MTV Asia, Vh1 India, Coconuts Yangon and the local press in Singapore, Yangon and India. "I wanted to bring my pop arrangement sensibilities to Deep House,” said Khambatta. His new track that "combines playful island percussion, hypnotic old school synths, a deep bassline and a catchy vocal chop hook is entirely made up of Apple Loops (prerecorded musical phrases or riffs to which are added drum beats, rhythm parts and other sounds)... I feel my new music will resonate with a post-Covid-lockdown audience,” stated Khambatta, also a percussionist, who plans to follow up this track with a vocal mix that has already been written.
He first rose to prominence on the Singapore scene in 2016 when TODAYonline covered his music written for Miles Away that generated more than 180,000 views across platforms, according to his website. In the following years he launched Sail Away, The Other Side and featured on the drums in Shut Up And Take My Money. "In 2019, having recently undergone a massive spiritual awakening and transformation,” he released Starseed and Reminisce. In 2020, new sound explorations led to The Dance Of The Ego, according to his career graph that features on his website.
"Any bit of expression, when true, can leave a lasting impact on another human’s life,” believes Khambatta. While his Singapore Music is "now the largest group for Singaporean music on Facebook,” another group he initiated, Global Performing Artists and Entertainers, has crossed 1,000 members. The third, but smaller community is Three Part Human Open Group "where I share my insights as a healer, coach and priest as well...
"Editing and shooting videos, speaking into the camera, sitting at a laptop and creating songs from scratch, looking out for others including clients, even though your own life may be in ruins, approving member requests and posts (on Facebook) while trying to make sure it remains a kind and safe place for everyone’s growth” fall within his regular course of responsibilities.
He faced "massive transition” in January 2021 when he and his wife Kairavi Majumdar-Khambatta, a human relations professional in a leading tech company, and their three-year-old daughter Zynya moved out of his parents’ place. After struggling to find a job in the second half of 2021, he joined the team of enfactum.com, a leading digital marketing agency in Singapore as its creative director.
Convinced that one should get "in touch with one’s soul versus being a helpless victim to certain oppression around the planet,” he stated that these sentiments will echo in some of his "rather deep songs coming out this year. One is called Pretty Angel (it’s more spiritual and less romantic than it sounds).”
Drawn to music since his childhood, Zephyr admitted that he would "use music as an escape when I was a child. I used my recess periods in Primary School to practise Michael Jackson’s tiptoe freeze sometimes. I get the strong sense that a portion of that man’s soul now lives inside me!” After studying at the Raffles Institution and Raffles Junior College, he joined the National University of Singapore to pursue an engineering degree but after the first semester opted to study BA (Hons) Music, at LASALLE College of the Arts (affiliated to Goldsmiths, University of London).
He appreciated that a few members of the Parsi community funded his first music video, Sail Away and the president of the Parsi Zoroastrian Association of Singapore, Homiyar Vasania, "loaned me (Singapore) $ 9,000 (Rs 4,99,260) near the start of my music graduation year to get the gear I needed to produce music professionally.” He also valued the support of the administrators of the Worldwide Zoroastrians group on Facebook.
When asked whether he has been influenced by the Zoroastrian religion, Zephyr confessed, "Strangely, no, although I am a priest, but it has reminded me that what I’m doing is in line with the religion, if good thoughts, good words and good deeds are anything to go by. Also as the world awakens, I think we all realize that religion is nothing more than the organization of spirituality and universal truths and that has definitely influenced my career.”