Dameer Khan, the young Bangladeshi known for signing up with the German label Majestic Casual Records even before bidding farewell to his teen years, opens up about his dulcet dreams. The eldest son of the well-known musician Pilu Khan of Renaissance, Dameer continues to carve a space of his own through his unorthodox music, not just in the local industry, but also beyond the national borders.
In an exclusive conversation with the budding star, we broke the ice on the topic of his one-of-a-kind name. Dameer – what does it really mean? “I believe it means conscience,” he replied enthusiastically. “I don’t know a single other human being named Dameer, so that’s pretty cool.” As unique as his name, the genre he has made a name in is still quite unconventional in this part of the world.
When asked why he chose to kickstart his musical career with Indie, he reveals that he doesn’t really approach music with a specific genre in mind, rather what he really aims to do is “something warm and a bit rough around the edges, something that sounds like it was made by a real person.” He admits that there are flavors of Mac Demarco, Tame Impala, Clairo in his music and that his philosophy is in tune with the usual sensibilities of Indie music – honest music being made by people in their basements and bedrooms with basic equipment.
Indie or not, we were eager to know how Dameer stepped into the world of music. He was initially enrolled in guitar lessons by his father. “My teacher was of course the legendary Labu Rahman of Feedback,” he remembers fondly. Although he didn’t stick to the classes, he did somehow end up marrying the piano and drums. His love for music pushed him to learn piano all by himself with the help of YouTube. Thanks to his friends who gave him a flute to remember Dhaka by, he managed to learn it too after moving to Malaysia.
Production was another thing he learned from the internet as it was “super accessible” to him in his own words. What drove him to learn it all was the drive to have his own thing. Terrified of the conventional trajectory of life, he wanted to do something that was expressive and unique to him.
Just like his popular song “Amar Jaan”. Dameer recalls writing it during a long-distance relationship when he first moved to Malaysia. He admits developing a strong dependency – a rare, vivid and colorful emotion in his own words. His song is an ode to that. The instrumentation behind it is very Bengali with the “bashi and dhol” and the Bangla chorus. “This song is about putting your all into something when nothing makes sense. When the world around you is crumbling and life seems to be meaningless. It’s about really melodramatic romance,” he says.
When asked about his relationship with Majestic Records, Dameer describes it as “Really cool. Really simple and salient.” He recalls the time when he was just 15 and would play his songs to his friends in the school bus. Soon made the move to the internet, where he started uploading to Soundcloud. He admits being an internet addict when it came to music – “I spent all of my days on the internet. And I was super involved in the music curation community on Youtube.
There are these channels that upload other people’s music but they curate it. When I was 15 I just started sending them my tracks. It took 2 years of constantly spamming them with everything I could, after which Majestic Casual finally replied on Soundcloud and said that they really liked a song. That song was Easier. It sort of went on from there. It was as simple as that.”
Dameer thinks things really shifted when he made that music video for Easier which was shot in Dhaka. “With no budget, and a basic camera and stabilizer, we just went and shot a video.” In his words, “it was a depiction of Dhaka that nobody had ever really seen before. This Indie lens, this dreamy psychedelic lens that showed that Dhaka is a city where you can fall in love, where you can see majestic skies that look like fire, where you can go to these massive fields that go on as far as the eye can see. It’s this really magical place.”
Through Majestic, he got the opportunity to fly to Berlin to record his EP in Red Bull Studios. He describes Berlin as “a city full of artists” and the whole experience “a dream come true”.
Speaking of dreams, we asked him what his dream collabs are at the moment. It was pretty difficult for him to name just a few but he ended up narrowing the list down to the Imran Ahmed Trio, Kangalini Sufia and the local Baul musicians. Globally he wants to collaborate with people who are unlike him in order to grow the art. He wishes to collaborate with Jazz musicians, Latino musicians and of course his recent hyper pop favorite, Charlie XCX.
So what’s next for Dameer? He discloses that he has discovered what he is best at – expression. He aspires to create songs like Amar Jaan to bring out a new form of expression for Bengali youth. He wishes to bring a sincere optimism to the table where he’s brutally honest about everything that’s going on in life. He smiles and calls Dhaka “the city where I’ve fallen in love. It’s a city where I’ve found passion. It’s a city where I’ve had the best, most beautiful times of my life.” He wants to express that to the world.
And that he has been doing – expressing and expanding. He tells us how he has been making tons of music, with his latest debut EP for “We Are Distant” that has just been released. He has many stories to tell about this album and a lot to share. For now, let’s check out his new collection.
Follow his social handle dameer.dk and stay tuned for more.