ARTIST OF THE MONTH

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It takes a very steady and singular mind to maintain an individual vision through nine years. A mind that is, perhaps, a collection of incongruities, but one that is certainly fueled by endless fortitude. Having hit the ground running last year with their supercharged performance in Channel V’s Launchpad Season 3- Kolkata based Cassini’s Division have steadily reaped a reputation for their distinctive brand of Alternative rock- one that brags of Fluid Harmonies, eerie arrangements, allegorical lyricism and distinctive guitar craft. IRMP3 catches up with maverick frontman Rahul Guha Roy for an exclusive interview.

IRMP3 : Hey Rahul, Thank you for taking time for the interview. What’s the latest at Camp Cassini’s? Flags raised, ready to march?
Rahul Guha Roy : Thank you for featuring us as the band of the month for September. Our debut album is just around the corner. We’re planning to take our music to new places we haven’t played at before. We’re also playing at the Nokia Music Connects conference in Mumbai. The Division is on marching orders. All-in-all life’s good.

IRMP3 : Let’s rewind a bit in time, for your new fans, briefly .. ‘the story so far’…
Rahul : Briefly, all this information is available on our cool Wiki page. It’s fairly simple really; we’ve been in this lineup since end-2004. We started life as a rock band making music that was unique and had elements that turned us on. It’s also a band where change is the only constant, musically speaking, and I think that will continue to define us.

IRMP3 : Your debut album ‘Ringside view’ will be out soon, what took this long? I mean these days new bands are out with albums within no time. What held you guys back?
Rahul : We think that releasing an album has a certain degree of seriousness to it. In today’s context there are certain quality benchmarks that need to be met such as production values, a hands-on producer who translates a band’s live sound into the recorded medium, etc. Also, it is important to have a label that has the capacity to distribute the album throughout the country and beyond, if possible. Come to think of it, the new bands you’re talking about are surfacing at time when all of this is just becoming available. As for our album, we felt this was the right time – the stars were aligning, as Ludo says.

IRMP3 : Tell us about the making of The Ringside View; how hard / fun it was recording with someone like Simon Henderson?
Rahul : Making the album was a great experience and Simon Henderson made all the hard work seem like a lot of fun. He’s crazy too, of course. That helped. At the same time, he’s excellent at what he does and had a natural empathy for the band’s music and objectives. As for the recording itself, we kept most of it organic, live and fresh, so that it is an accurate picture of the way we perform the music on stage.

IRMP3 : How do you guys plan to promote the album? Any tour plans?
Rahul : Saregama (HMV) is the label we’re signed with. There is a music video on the cards and various promotional activities. We plan to tour as extensively as we can to promote the album and take the music to a space that is larger than the niche we occupy at the moment. I think the music on the album will also help do this. Apart from Indian cities, the immediate objective tour-wise, is to reach out to Southeast Asia and possibly later, the UK and US.

IRMP3 : All bands evolve over time. You guys have also incorporated a lot of electronica and hip-hop elements in your music, which is a far cry from your grungy alternative start. How do you define the current genre of music that CD plays? And what inspired you guys to shift to a different sound altogether?
Rahul : As you’ve pointed out, evolving musically is a natural process for any band. We’ve never really incorporated any electronica – it’s all organic. We have borrowed certain ideas that come from EDM as well as hip-hop, especially in the form of spoken word and rapping. At heart though, we are just a rock ‘n’ roll band. We don’t think of ourselves as being representative of any sub-genre. It’s all music and it’s there because we like it. We call our current music hybrid because that’s what it is. We don’t intellectualize the process of how we go about making music at different periods of time. We try and let the music play the band instead of the other way around.

IRMP3 : Channel V Launchpad III showcased you guys on national level, although the show itself was a failure, how was the experience?
Rahul : As to whether the show was a failure or not, I don’t think we know, because none of us really watch all that much TV. The experience was a mixed one. Got to know a lot of bands fairly well and had a great time, generally, hanging out with them and the crew. The question about whether the format of this particular show should have gone the reality TV way is an academic one – but on the sunny side, being finalists, we’re a lot better known now. It took us to a lot of people and places we had not earlier reached.

IRMP3 : You guys were also the finalists at Sutasi 2009 in Singapore. How was that experience competing with international bands?
Rahul : Sutasi, of course, was a different ballgame from LP III. It was interesting to see how the musical trajectory and emotional narrative of rock music has evolved in such different ways in different countries. Chinese rock, for example, is wholly and vastly different from the sound and scene in India. It was less of a competition and more of a festival to take Asian Rock to an international audience. We were popular choice finalists from our region (Southasia) and we’d like to think of that as an achievement we’ll always be proud of, considering the fact that the quality of music from all the countries was simply superb.

IRMP3 : Despite fame, you guys have not made it big on the national scene, what keeps CD away from social networks?
Rahul : As the old adage goes, fame and money don’t always go hand-in-hand. However, I know what you’re getting at, and the answer is simply that certain realities, like geographical location, a strictly original live set, and the fact that our music isn’t stereotypical, have at various points of time worked against us. Now, with the album, the video and the tours, we intend to rectify that. An indication of a free social network’s choice would be our holding out at No. 1 on the local chart, and consistently among top 3 on the National Alternative Charts on Reverbnation. But that is obviously because it is listener and fan-weighted and not controlled by a few.

IRMP3 : Day jobs, different bands, local gigs, how do you guys manage to pull it off? And how promising is Calcutta Scene?
Rahul : None of us hold day jobs or play in other bands. There are 2 projects that individual members are involved in, but they are not bands in the conventional sense of the term. We play at a couple of places in Cal every month as well as outstation. I’d like to think we manage our time fairly well and nothing else is ever done at the expense of Cassini’s Division. Calcutta’s scene is growing not just statistically, but also in quality and originality. The city is also becoming a magnet for talent in the region, so I think it’s getting better.

IRMP3 : This is your space. Anything you want to say to fans, friends, foes… anything at all.
Rahul : It’s been a trip so far. A big shout out to our fans and friends for all the support and encouragement over the years. Buy and enjoy the album. We promise to bring you more good music in the future. A big shout out to our foes as well. We’d never have made it this far without you. Though I must point out that it is difficult to understand enmity in the context of music.

IRMP3 : And the “famous last words” are…
Rahul : We have what it takes!!!

*IRMP3 would like to thank Prasanna Singh and Kaushik Barua for the precious input given by them to prepare this interview.
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PREVIOUS ARTISTS OF THE MONTH :

AUG 2010 – THERMAL AND A QUARTER . Bangalore

JULY 2010- IAFWAY. New Delhi.

JUNE 2010- DEVOID . Mumbai.

MAY 2010 . LUCID RECESS. Guwahati

APRIL 2010 . SCRIBE . Mumbai.

MARCH- 2010 KRYPTOS . Bangalore

FEB-2010 BLAKC . Bombay

JAN -2010 ARTILLERIE . Delhi

DEC 2009 DARK HORIZON . Guwahati

NOV 2009 DEMONIC RESURRECTION . Bombay

OCT 2009 – THE CIRCUS . New Delhi