Samir Shrestha’s 10th single ‘Timiley’ make waves 

By Mannu Shahi

Born on August 31, 2002, Samir Shrestha is a 21-year-old singing sensation immensely cherished by the masses for his expressive songwriting and romantically permeated ballads. Influenced by singers/songwriters such as Bipul Chettri, Sajjan Raj Vaidya and Sushant KC; their indie-alternative textured modern Nepali pop sound, enticed the singer to pursue a similar route. 

Samir penned his first composition at 15; however, he now claims that various life events gradually egressed further opportunities for him to sharpen his writing and expressing skills. He subsisted in creating his songs more and more but waited until the completion of high school to officially record or publish his materials. 

Meanwhile, after concluding the grade 10 SEE exams, he started uploading cover tunes to garner some followers online. He initiated his digital cover journey with Swoopna Sumans’s ‘Saathi’ posted on his Facebook handle and Sajjan Raj’s ‘Chitti Bhitra’ on his YouTube.

Nevertheless, after sharing his composition with his friends on a travel vacation, the singer, upon persistent request from his peers, uploaded a rough video of him singing his first original ‘Chaar Dewar’, recorded on a murky rooftop with a candle-light and camera ensnared audio. This very video went viral on the Internet and launched the cogent career of this dazzling heart-throb, currently surpassing over 10 million streams. And the singer continues to drop engaging singles one after the other captivating a staggering 428,000 subscribers on his official YouTube channel. 

The list of his prominence is evident throughout his YouTube discography. His most cherished singles include: ‘Thamana Haat’ with 28 million streams; ‘Hera Na’ comprising 17 million plays; ‘Kuri Basechu’ featuring Sabal Dev Shrestha encompassing 11 million views, ‘Maya ta maya ho’, featuring Bardan, surpassing 10 million plays, and his fifth single ‘Mero Mana Ma’ with 10 million streams. 

And recently, the singer published his tenth official single ‘Timiley’ on Thursday, October 5, which has already bombarded the Nepal-moderated YouTube charts, escalating at #7 on trending for music within a day of its premiere. The music for the single is produced, mixed and mastered by sonic wizard Rohit Shakya (Fuzz Factory Production), while, the video is a production of Garage Entertainment with Rupesh Shrestha on direction; Kaushal Gurung on cinematography; Suzanne Shrestha as the art director; and Saroj Kumar Khadka as the production manager. 

Samir states that ‘Timiley’ embodies the journey of emotion, the unspoken love that envelops your heart like a warm and comforting embrace. 

The tune starts with a melancholic keyboard phrase, layered and harmonized along this large and lush reverbed chordal bed, a triangle-like hit indicates the entry of vocals. The verse builds up with piano, string section and flowy yet piercing guitar counterpoint transitioning the song to the pre-chorus. 

Pre-chorus introduces spacey percussive parts and accreting melodic sections pacing the structure to the chorus where the drums materialise into a full backbeat and the vocals added alongside the slide guitar layer ooze an eastern “adhunik” flavour. 

This is followed by a short interlude preceding the repetition of a similar format of verse, pre-chorus which is extended a bit the second time around paving the way for the bridge. The bridge encapsulates a recurring melodic theme from Samir Shrestha’s vault of tunes, fluxing away to the final chorus functioning as the climax and the dynamic peak of the song.