With a decade of standup comedy experience under his belt, Aakash Mehta is now all set to make a foray into the world of music.  The Mumbai-based comic has just dropped his debut single Love Of You—a folksy, introspective ditty about the joy of feeling love for another—and announced that a full-length album What Is Life will release in January 2022.

Mehta has been writing and playing songs since his college days, when he did a diploma in audio engineering and even played in a short-lived band with Karunesh Talwar, but those were largely for private consumption amongst friends and family. It wasn’t till the pandemic hit that he thought of finally putting some of them together on an album, a decision that was in large part thanks to the enthusiastic support of musician Shashwat Bulusu, who also produced the record.

Mehta promises that the record, set to be released on highly successful indie label Pagal Haina Records, will offer an intimate portrait of his rich inner world. In a statement, he writes “I really thought [the title] said it all. 8 songs of moments in time and feelings I’ve felt and stories I’ve wanted to tell, or maybe I had to tell them. What A Life is the closest I could get to a musical diary of sorts. A journal of stories and feelings that were better left sung out instead of held in.”

As a bonus, here’s a 2015 rendition of the lead single Love Of You so you can see how the song has evolved over the last six years!