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Velo Sound Station just got a lot more interesting. The music platform underwent a cinematic makeover courtesy of this year’s executive producer, filmmaker Bilal Lashari.

The trailer for Velo Sound Station 3 just dropped with two surprise additions — Fawad Khan, formerly of EP and currently Pakistan’s biggest heartthrob, and the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Lashari was tight-lipped about both inclusions but said the late maestro’s inclusion in this season is a surprise (and it definitely has nothing to do with AI, thank God) and Fawad’s inclusion could be called his comeback to original music.

That comeback won’t be with EP, but fans will have to comfort themselves with the fact that they finally have something from Fawad that isn’t a drama or movie.

Speaking of movies, Fawad’s last big screen offering was The Legend of Maula Jatt, which was, coincidentally, Lashari’s last big project as well. They created magic with that film so we can only hope Lashari’s magic touch extends to this season of Velo Sound Station.

Here’s what we do know about the upcoming season — Lashari is the executive producer, Ammara Hikmat is serving as co-producer and four different producers worked with them on the music.

The artists revealed in the trailer are Hasan Raheem, Natasha Noorani, Abdul Hannan, Adnan Dhool, Shae Gill, Zain Zohaib, Risham Faiz Bhutta, Annural Khalid, Faris Shafi, Young Stunners, Fawad Khan, Atif Aslam, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

The one thing that stands out from the trailer is the production value and cinematography — it’s as if we’re looking at the trailer for an amazing adventure.

Last year’s music videos were very pop-inspired and had a more club-meets-psychedelic party theme for the large part. If you think this year’s offerings seem different, it’s intentional. Lashari told Images that he wanted to flip the direction of what a music platform looked like.

Each episode will be different — apart from the obvious differences of songs and artists. The music videos themselves will have different genres to keep it unpredictable and fresh, the director explained.

“The overarching theme is cinematic presentation. For some episodes, it will be narrative driven, for some performance-based, others VFX based. A lot of it is meant to go with the song,” he said. They’ve fused the concepts for the songs and videos together so that it all blends into one cohesive piece of work each episode.

Part of the reason for this is that he wanted to give the episodes a “larger than life perspective”. “Another reason is that cinema is lacking anyway and cinematic presentation is lacking. We don’t get a lot of of opportunities to go in that direction,” he said, seeing Velo Sound Station as the perfect way to combine both interests.

Lashari started off his career directing music videos and then shifted focus towards films, so for him, Velo Sound Station has presented an interesting creative space that he can work in.

But he’s following in the footsteps of some pretty big names — Bilal Maqsood for season one and Rohail Hyatt for season two. In fact, most music platforms have executive producers with a background in music who work with video directors. Here, it’s the other way around and that’s what piqued Lashari’s interest.

“That was the exciting part that made it fresh and challenging,” he said. It’s also a double-edged sword. He now gets to bring something to the table that was previously outsourced — video production — while also working with new producers, artists and technicians with a lot of music expertise.

He worked with four different producers on Velo Sound Station 3 — some he’s worked with in the past and some new to him — for the episodes. He signed on as the executive producer and essentially decided to direct the music videos as well.

He thinks of the production as creating a soundtrack, because that is something he has experience with. While he hasn’t produced music directly, he has had music made for his films.

Music has been an important part of Lashari’s process — he uses it in his writing, while visualising scenes, in his imagination and in his soundtracks.

Working on Velo is a “dream project” for the director, who said it granted him a lot more room to work.

But just because he’s from a film background doesn’t mean this year’s songs will be all music video and no music — it’s always been clear to him that it was music and then video. “I wanted to blur the gap,” he said, explaining that for the most part, in 80 per cent of the season there’s been a union between the music and the video.

“It’s always about the song and the music, and we were pretty clear we want to make kick-ass songs,” he said.

The process of creating the songs and music videos isn’t black and white — as Lashari explained, there are many variables, people and personalities involved. They worked with themes or worlds that guided the video production, music, lyrics and the choice of artist, and all of those elements came together to create each music video.

“Each episode comes as a unique experience,” he said. “[It’s been] a bit challenging to sum it all up, but it’s been quite a ride.”

And judging from the trailer, we’re all in for quite a ride when the new season releases in a couple of weeks.