Insomnia (band)

Insomnia

The mark of sleeplessness
Background information
Origin Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Genres Alternative, nu age, progressive rock, Bengali rock
Years active 1998-2010
Labels Independent, Asha Audio, HMV, saregama
Members Rajarshi Barman (Dodo), Souvik Gupta (Savvy Gupta), Subhodip Banerjee (Subho), Prasenjit Chakrabutty (Pom), Rohit Nandi (Rohit), Manager - Rahul Mehra (Paiya)
Past members Subhajit Roy Chowdhury (Subho), Bodhisattwa Ghosh (Bodhi), Sudipto Banerjee (Buti), Sayantan Neogi (Ninnai), Dipanjan Mukherjee (Ebu), Santanu Das Roy (Tito), Ayan Dasgupta (Boom), Sougata Basu (Papa)

Insomnia (Bengali: ইনসমনিয়া) was a rock band based in Kolkata,[1] West Bengal. The band's repertoire included both English and Bengali songs. The band has an album each in English (Cry of the Spirit - self released) and Bengali (Proloyer Shomoye - Asha Audio).[2][3][4] Insomnia were also quite adept at executing live music for theatre, being part of the act itself, in plays such as Peacewards[5] (directed by Jayant Kripalani, produced by Red Curtain Productions, based on monologues written by Manjula Padmanabhan), a 3rd theatre version of Rokto Korobi[6] (written by Rabindranath Tagore, conceptualised by Badal Sarkar, directed by Parnab Mukherjee, starring Sudipta Chakraborty) and numerous other plays. "Opekkha" from their Bengali album Proloyer Shomoye was part of the original soundtrack of the first Bengali sex comedy movie Aamra[7][8] (produced by Venkatesh films, directed by Mainak Bhaumik, cast - Parambrata Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Rudranil Ghosh, Nilanjana, Ananya Chatterjee, Kaushik Ghosh, Rajatava Datta, Momo).

Discography

Cry of the Spirit
Studio album by Insomnia
Released September 2004 (India)
Recorded September 2003-October 2003
Genre Progressive rock, psychedelic rock
Label Independent Label
Producer Sumit Ray
Year of release Title Label Language
2004 Cry of the Spirit Independent Label English
2006 Proloyer Shomoye Asha Audio Bengali
2008 Parallel Universe (The Underground – Kolkata) HMV saregama English
2012 Untitled Asha Audio Bengali

Cry of the Spirit

Cry of the Spirit' was the debut album of Insomnia. The album showed the original sound of Insomnia which shifted heavily later on after moving to Bengali language abandoning English.

Insomnia recorded their debut album titled Cry of the Spirit at Studio Vibrations, Kolkata between September and October 2003. As the name suggests, the album is about a human being's loneliness of the soul. Musically,the album is loosely based on experimental Classic Rock, amalgamated with Post-modern synthesizers. Mixed at Studio Vibrations and produced by brand developer Sumit Roy, the album was released in September 2004 at Someplace Else,The Park and is on private circulation.[9]

Proloyer Shomoye

Proloyer Shomoye
Studio album by Insomnia
Released September 2006 (India)
Recorded September 2003-October 2003
Genre Progressive rock, psychedelic rock
Label Asha Audio
Producer Jojo, Potla

Proloyer Shomoye is the second full-length studio album by, Insomnia, and their first Bengali album. It was recorded at Dream Digital Inc., Kolkata between May and August 2006. Proloyer Shomoye is a reflected contemporary times that we live in, the times of turbulence. With this album, Insomnia radically changed their sonic direction to New Age Alternative. Mixed at Dream Digital Inc. and mastered at Edensound Mastering, Melbourne, the album was launched in September 2006 at Octane, Gariahat Mall under the banner of Asha Audio.[9]

The Band's journey

Insomnia plugged in for the first time in 1999 as the South Point High School (Kolkata India) school band. The initial line up of Subho, Rohit, Dipanjan and Bodhi went on to win most of the school fests in the following years playing mostly covers of every genre. The next three years the band went through self-discovery writing their own music. It was in 2001 when Dodo and Buti joined completing the band. The bass player, Dipanjan, also the founding member, left and Tito joined. Ninnai, a long time friend of the band was the last to join as the second vocalist in 2002 end. The band's sound was defined by Bodhi's poetry and elegant playing, Buti's arrangements, Subho's wild stage antiques, Ninnai's psychedelic performances, Dodo's emotion rich voice and Rohit's act as the backbone. Ultimately the psychedelic sound evolved to a heavy mix of rock, electronica and western classical genres.

Insomnia's first show as a professional outfit was on 7 July 2002 in Music World, Park Street and it went on to reach great heights for the next two years as the kids were recognized as true rockers. They worked with veteran ad man Sumit Roy who drove the band to create a sound what they called Visionary Rock.

In 2004 Buti left to join Cactus while a dispute among members led to Subho, one of the founder members and driving force of the band leaving. Since then the band went though many line-up changes. However against all odds they stuck on to continue explore and create more music.

Noteworthy performances by the band:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ghoshal, Shounak (4 January 2008). "Get Set Rock!". Kolkata Mirror.
  2. ↑ "New music mantra". The Telegraph (Calcutta). 6 April 2006.
  3. ↑ Chatterjee, Chandreyee (30 October 2006). "Band of boys". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  4. ↑ Prasanna (8 October 2006). "Prasanna's blog". Cprasannas.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2011-08-04.
  5. ↑ "Peacewards". Peaceworks. Archived from the original on 19 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  6. ↑ "Parnab Mukherjee". Laboratory for Enthusiastic Collaboration Company Bios. Laboratory for Enthusiastic Collaboration. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  7. ↑ Mitra, Mandira (29 October 2006). "Hip posturing". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  8. ↑ "Tollywood top draws 2006". The Telegraph (Calcutta). 31 October 2006. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  9. 1 2 Archived 8 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ "Santo meets Zimmerman". Blog for Mohiner Ghorahuli.

External links

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