Aug 23, 2026 11:00am IST
‘KK Will Never Be Forgotten’: Palash Sen On Bringing The Late Singer’s Voice To Euphoria’s ‘Dhoomsday’ (EXCLUSIVE)
For Palash Sen, the most personal collaboration on Euphoria’s ninth studio album “Dhoomsday” is one that could never happen in the conventional sense. The frontman had always wanted to work with KK, his friend and fellow voice of India’s independent music era. Four years after KK’s death, Sen has found a way to make that collaboration happen by building a new arrangement around KK’s existing vocals on “Aap Ki Duaa.”
“It’s an album of collaborations, and then I thought, ‘What is the one collaboration I always wanted to do that has never happened?’ And I thought of my bro, KK,” Sen says to Variety India in an exclusive conversation.
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The track comes from KK’s debut solo album “Pal,” released in 1999, the record that established songs including “Pal,” “Yaaron” and “Aap Ki Duaa” as defining pieces of the Indian independent music movement. Euphoria itself had arrived with its debut album “Dhoom” in 1998, making the collaboration a meeting point between two artists who emerged during the same era of India’s non-film music boom.
Sen says the band approached Sony Music India to secure the rights to KK’s vocal recording. Once they had them, he made a deliberate decision: do not tamper with the singer’s performance.
“We approached his label, Sony Music India, and they were very nice about it. They just gave us the rights to his voice,” Sen says. “I loved the song so much, so I just said, ‘Okay, fine. Just take the song, we’ll use his voice, and keep the song the way it was.’”
The musical intervention, he says, was limited to a new arrangement. “We haven’t changed anything in the song. It’s just a new arrangement,” Sen adds, “I didn’t want to change the song or alter KK’s vocals.”
That restraint is central to the track. Rather than trying to recreate KK or manufacture a posthumous performance, Sen has placed his own voice alongside the existing recording.
“I just sang like him. So, he’s sung half the song and I’ve sung half,” he says. For Sen, the decision was rooted as much in friendship as music. He calls KK his “bro” and describes the track as Euphoria’s way of acknowledging an artist whose voice remains deeply embedded in the memories of an entire generation. “It is my tribute, primarily Euphoria’s tribute, to one of the greatest human beings, forget about one of the greatest singers, one of the greatest human beings we’ve known,” Sen affirms.
That sentiment also explains why Sen chose “Aap Ki Duaa.” He describes it as one of his favourite songs and singles out Leslee Lewis’ composition as one he has always admired.
The decision also gives “Dhoomsday” a direct connection to Euphoria’s own history. The band, founded by Sen and fellow Delhi musicians, became one of the defining forces of the Indian independent music scene with songs such as “Dhoom Pichuck Dhoom” and subsequent albums. Sen is now using the ninth Euphoria album to bring together artists he admires across generations, from Shalmali Kholgade, Akriti Kakar and Jyotsna Radhakrishnan to younger artists including Dhanji, Kinshuk Sen and Abhay Jodhpurkar, as well as the Nazar Pandher Group.
But KK’s presence carries a different weight. “The whole idea behind doing the song was to say that KK will never be forgotten,” Sen says. “He is immortal, he is still amongst us, and his voice will live on.”
For an album explicitly built around collaboration, “Aap Ki Duaa” becomes its most poignant one: a new Euphoria arrangement, Sen’s voice and a preserved KK performance meeting across time. “This is just a small tribute that we could do for him,” Palash Sen says.
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