He has a lot on his plate. He’s got shows lined up in Nepal, a tour in India and most importantly, his first EP is about to be released, in India.

“It’s been hectic. But I’m not complaining. This is what I’ve always wanted and I’m enjoying this,” says Prasidha Yonzon, who has been making music for the past five years under the name YNZN.P.

Growing up in Patan, Yonzon never felt he would get into electronic music. Like many millennials in the Valley, he too wanted to become a rock star. And so during his college years, he started a band. But band members started leaving one after another, in search of better education and opportunities. Yonzon decided then that if he were to pursue music seriously, he’d have to focus on a solo career.

“I started composing songs, and tried to see if I could pull it off solo. But it didn’t feel right so I ventured out to do something different,” he says.

Something different came in the form of electronic music. He says he drew inspiration from artists like Maribou State, Jai Paul, Fine Print and Young Fathers. But his main drive, he says, came from wanting to do something that hadn’t been tried in Nepal, up until 2015.

“I still remember trying to chop up a vocal sample without really knowing what I was doing. I just knew I had a sound in my mind and I was trying to take those samples there,” he says, recalling his first day creating a track. “I had just learned to slice samples in a digital audio workstation called Ableton. From there it didn’t take long for my first track to finish.”

Yonzon was ecstatic when he finished his first track. But what it also did was light a fire in Yonzon who wanted to do more.

“I was hooked. I wanted to do this and it felt right doing this. It opened up a whole new world for me,” he says.

The initial public response was lukewarm, however, he says. But knowing that this was what he wanted to do kept him going.

And that is exactly what happened. His unique taste in his music started to get him attention. People who were doing similar types of music as Yonzon started noticing him. One organisation that was closely following Yonzon’s work was Spektrum, a musical venture dedicated to introducing different musical genres to Nepali ears.

It was at Spektrum where he met like-minded people who, he says, inspired him to continue what he was doing. The people involved with Spektrum, including its producers and DJs, have been constructing sounds that are away from the pop-driven techno and electronic dance music which most people in Nepal listen to.

“I signed up with Spektrum in 2019. I think they have been doing a terrific job when it comes to providing a platform for artists like me,” he says. “They pushed me to continue doing what I was doing. That was great for a young artists like me.”

It was through Spektrum that Yonzon got connected to Skip a Beat, the Indian record label under which his EP is being released.

“I could’ve done it on my own. Producing music isn’t that tough now-a-days. But I wanted to do with this company, as it would connect me with similar artists,” he says. “The type of music I do is quite a hit in India. They liked my music and asked me if I wanted to do an EP with it. It was a no brainer really.”

Yonzon’s EP features three tracks which have been carefully crafted with a signature style, without subscribing to a specific genre. He says he doesn’t want to limit himself to any particular genre because he wants to continue experimenting.

Like his previous tracks, the new EP also features choppy breaks with a lot of sampling and includes intricate percussive elements. While he says his sound is “all over the place”, for the adept ear, the music comes together rather effortlessly.

“I don’t want to do what people have already done. And that is what this EP is all about. It’s my form of expression.”

In his latest EP, he has also taken inspiration from what he used to do in his early days. But he says he tries to produce something different every time he sits in front of his laptop.

“Most of the time I don’t want to be feeling or thinking the same way as I did on the last track,” he says. “This way I get to internalise something, translate it into soundscapes, then move on to something different.”

In track three of his EP Yonzon has tried to do the same thing. In ‘Forget To Forget’ he’s not used the same sound twice. ‘How About That’ isn’t very linear but the tracks remain coherent throughout. He says it’s a message to people who ask him to play what they like. For ‘Dirty Swing Thing,’ specifically, there wasn’t a concept as such as he was just experimenting and kept following certain sounds.

When asked if he thinks about others while producing tracks, he says he doesn’t pay much attention to what others like. Yonzon says, as long as he is happy with the tracks’ sounds, he is happy with what he does.

He does admit people in Nepal don’t have an ear for the music he produces but hopes the scene will continue to grow. “Here hardly 200 people show up for a show. But in India, shows get over 500 people easily. But maybe that has to do with the ratio there,” he says.

While there isn’t much money in the business, for now Yonzon is content—he has support from his family and his peers’ respect. “Sometimes there are more important things than money,” he says.