Meet Aksomaniac, the Kerala music producer behind Spotify viral hit Amsham

The track, which has been viral on Instagram since then, seamlessly transitions across genres such as R&B and hip-hop. With verses in Malayalam and Tamil, the song also features indie artists M.H.R., Bhumi and Circle Tone. “With music, I have an incentive to understand my language better,” he says.

Amsham was meant as a love song. “I started out as a track to tease my partner,” he says. Aron had been thinking about the mythological figures of Manmadhan or Kamadevan — beings who awaken love in others but are denied it themselves. He says, “Manmadhan embodies a cruel paradox. I first encountered him in the 1991 Malayalam film, Njan Gandharvan.” The movie gave him what he needed. Amsham thus became an attempt to ease into the idea of love and bonding. “You have to push the story forward in steps and make people more comfortable slowly,” says the 22-year-old.

Aron was the reluctant school boy who had Carnatic vocal and tabla classes, which held no interest for the then seven-year-old. But the turning point came when his music teacher realised he had an instinct for music. She suggested that he learn the keyboard and piano. He was surprised when his family agreed to buy him a piano because it cost them a lot. They had to take a small loan for it. But that changed things for him. “A piano is a large instrument. You walk toward it, sit in front of it, and it’s like a form of surrender when you practise. I started practising for nine hours every single day,” he adds.

It was like music had become his life breath. “I was listening to three or four albums a day, like having three meals. I felt like I had missed out and was catching up on lost time,” says Aron, who by ninth grade had started writing poetry too. He did enrol for Computer Science in TKM College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram, but dropped out in the third year to pursue music. Last year, he moved to Mumbai.

Building Amsham with M.H.R or Mohammed Hussain Rahman (popular hip-hop and EDM producer from Malappuram, known for popular tracks such as Malabari Banger and Munthirichar) was not always easy. “I didn’t like the first drop he made, and he didn’t like the drop I made,” he says. So they sat together and listened to the song until something better came out. “I love that disagreement. I am someone who loves disagreement and the way it allows a person to grow.”

The name Aksomaniac comes from AKS, his initials, fused with his mother’s name Soma in the middle, finished off with “maniac” that he already had on his Instagram handle. “There isn’t an alignment between the music and the name,” he admits, “But keeping it is a way of validating that child who was doing cover songs back then.”

That child isn’t far from the person on this call.