Delhi’s Apartment Upstairs shows a lot of promise and versatility on their single ‘I’ll Be With You’; the song explores genre, has strong features and shows a hell of a lot of talent. The sound presented here takes cues from soul, funk and jazzy hip-hop, but what is especially remarkable about it is that the musicians involved doing all of it justice over three and half groovy and catchy-as-hell minutes. Every instrumental decision taken here works. ‘I’ll Be With You’ is a win.

One of these is the inclusion of Abhay Sharma on sax who absolutely kills it here. The song goes through a few stylistic shifts in a relatively short amount of time, but one of the things that keeps it so easy-going and smooth is the presence of the sax as a through-line. It goes from a background layer in the song’s first third to the melodic lead of the refrain that follows it, and then to a full-on solo at the end of the track. Speaking of the end of the song, it’s funky as hell with its percussive guitar and driving rhythms. A rather restrained but smooth rap section from Oran Brahma (that’s rapper Fakeer) is almost a sort of bridge in between this and the song’s melodic beginnings; it a bit jarring at first but the sudden interruption it provided ends up keeping it fresh on repeated listens. Apartment Upstairs don’t really put a foot wrong anywhere else here; the guitars are clean, the vocals are on point, and the bass is yet another element that ties ‘I’ll Be With You’. There is no reason not to give this a spin, especially for fans of the sounds the band pulls from. They do a great job with it here.