Siblings on song

Belinda and Brandon Mendes, the siblings who form Merak

Putting a band together is often a tedious process where the founding members have to go through numerous auditions before they get the right mix of musicians. But sometimes, it's as simple as two siblings who live under the same roof telling each other, "Let's start a project together." That's what happened in the case of Belinda Ann Mendes and her brother, Brandon. The two had grown up in an environment where they would wake up on the weekends to their parents playing songs on the radio on full blast. They were both musically inclined from an early age, and developed a healthy taste for genres like jazz and metal, and bands including Porcupine Tree and Radiohead. But they pursued their education in different fields, with Brandon choosing psychology and Belinda studying architecture.

The apples hadn't fallen far from the tree, though. And when Brandon returned to Goa, their home state, in 2018 after a two-year stint in Dubai, the seeds were planted for A Fine Mess, the three-track EP that the siblings recently launched under the musical moniker of Merak. It occupies a dreamy soundscape where Belinda's soothing vocals float like a flying cotton seed that comes to rest on the ambient sonic ground that Brandon has created. The brother tells us about his sister, "She would write a lot of lyrics and poetry before going to sleep at night, while I would compose music on my own. Then one day, she showed me some of her stuff and we made our first song together about two years ago, after which we kept doing it again and again."

Belinda adds that the advantage of starting an outfit with her sibling is that their wavelengths already match when they approach the drawing board for a new song. They do have occasional differences like all siblings do. But these don't creep into the musical space they share. The duo plan to keep releasing more music, and the sister says, "Brandon is calmer than I am, and we keep our disagreements aside while making music. We instead adopt a trial-and-error approach since it's always a good idea to keep exploring a tune. You shouldn't cancel the other person out."

That's sage advice, and one that the comically feuding brothers of Britpop band Oasis should have followed before setting their own house famously on fire.

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