he line-up of Sounds of Kolachi is no longer the same. Since releasing their debut album, Elhaam in 2017, the band has seen changes when it comes to its members.

Most prominently, Quaid Ahmad amicably left the band to pursue solo interests within music. But there is no bad blood between Ahsan Bari and Qauid Ahmad. Fortunately enough, the band is not calling it a day.

Sporadically perhaps but between Elhaam’s release and the current air, we’ve heard Ahsan Bari’s solo EP, Guzarish (with creative production by Salt Arts). He also released, in conjunction with Sheikh Dina, an EP called Dhaka Say Karachi with four songs. A touching short film by Ahsan Bari, Dhaka Say Karachi, was made in collaboration with Transforming Narratives, British Council, Culture Central and Arts Council England.

While Ahsan Bari continued his pursuit of solo career with various hues to it, Sounds of Kolachi appeared on Coke Studio in 2018 with ‘Ilallah’ and went on to drop songs such as ‘Azaad’ and ‘Jaag Karachi’ in 2022.

In an exclusive conversation with Instep about plans for 2023, Ahsan Bari revealed that he is (a) working on his solo album, which is meant to release this year and (b) working on SOK material.

As part of his own record label, Push Arts, which he described to Instep as, “a record label, artist management and curation [company]. It includes content creation of a very different kind,” he will be working with five to six artists.

With respect to his association with Arts Council, Ahsan said that, “there are multiple festivals,” to look forward to in the year ahead. “We just got done with a festival from which we found a pool of talent.”

Ahsan Bari’s association with Arts Council also allowed him to mentor hundreds of kids as the lockdown was lifted, and the plan, according to Ahsan, is to continue doing the same in 2023 as well.

“At Arts Council, we also end up hosting a lot of international artists,” he said, adding, “I will be traveling to various parts of the world to make some music and I will be producing a lot of world music this year.”

Looks like even though we’re in the middle of just the second month of 2023, Ahsan Bari has plans, great big plans and he is someone who delivers across a wide spectrum of the sonic landscape. A teacher, mentor, musical genius, writer, collaborator, we’re sure Ahsan Bari is one of those rare diamonds that the industry needs. We hope to hear more of his creations when they release. Until then you can look out for his performance[s] in your city. Chances are you won’t be disappointed.