Cassini's Division

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This article is about the musical group. For the rings around the planet Saturn, see Cassini Division.

Cassini's Division
Cassini'sdivisionbandpic1.jpg
Background information
OriginKolkata, West Bengal, India
GenresAlternative rock
Modern Indian rock
Hybrid
Years active2001–present
LabelsHMV – Sa Re Ga Ma
Websitewww.cassinisdivision.com
MembersRahul Guha Roy
Sukanti Roy
Ritoban Ludo Das
John Noel Bose
Past membersShovon Mukjerjee
John Noel Bose
Shamik Chatterjee
Arka Das

Cassini's Division (Bengali: কাসিনিস ডিভিসন) are an Alternative Rock band from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Formed in 2001, they are named after the Cassini Division, the largest gap in the Rings of Saturn.

History[]

Testing Times and Change (2001–2004)[]

Cassini's Division was founded in 2001 at Liberty Hall, Rahul's Salt Lake residence when Rahul, Sukanti, Shamik and Arka started jamming original material. Much of the songwriting was to Rahul's credit, with the band coming together to arrange the music. In mid-2001, Arka's brother Ritoban (Ludo) joined the band on percussions. The band went on to record its first demo EP, Animal Wisdom, in late 2001 with this line-up. In 2002 Shamik left the band and was replaced by John Noel Bose, a longtime musician friend of Rahul's. In 2004 Arka left the band and Ludo took over as drummer. The band has, since, remained in this line-up.

2005–2009[]

In 2005, Cassini's Division signed on as a house band at the hub of the Calcutta live music scene – Someplace Else – and played almost weekly gigs there for the next 3 years.

Early 2006, Cassini's Division performed in Guwahati and Shillong as part of the initiative Jaago Grahak Jaago by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs – a consumer awareness campaign targeted at the youth of the Northeast. Cassini's Division appeared as themselves in the 2006 Indian film The Bong Connection.[1]

Cassini's Division organised the first edition of The Calcutta Rock Festival in February 2007, together with The Supersonics.[2] In December 2007, the band signed on for Sutasi, a pan-Asian talent search. As part of Sutasi, they recorded four of their songs with UK producer Simon Henderson, performed in Singapore in 2008, and went on to become winners of the Wildcard category amongst participants from 13 Asian countries.[3] The show was aired as a series on Zee Café in 2008. Cassini's Division performed at the Eastwind Festival in New Delhi in February 2008.[4] Only for a While appeared on the mixtape 'The Underground', released by major Indian label Saregama end-2008.[5]

Cassini's Division participated in Channel [V] Launchpad, a rock band talent hunt-turned-reality show. The band was one of the 3 finalists[6] and went on to play the Concert For Change at the Andheri Sports Complex (Mumbai) in May 2009.

2010[]

In April 2010, the band signed with HMV-Saregama and recorded Ringside View with producer Simon Henderson. The album was released in October 2010[7] to critical acclaim.[8] Rolling Stone (September 2010) described Ringside View as 'an eclectic and informed piece of work', and it swiftly made the 10 best Indian albums of 2010 (January 2011).

Cassini's Division played the Greenpeace Earth Day Festival (Kolkata) in May 2010.

2014 & 2015[]

Cassini's Division hit the studio of Universal Music Publishing in the middle of 2014 to record their second album titled Animal Wisdom with Universal resident recording engineer Devashis Ray. This album includes works of Rahul which predates the band's 2010 debut album Ringside View. The album revolves around the concept of how all the species on earth, except human beings, coexist in harmony with the nature. This album features the same line-up of Ringside View except John Bose, who left the band and went to Delhi in 2011 to fulfil personal work commitments. While they searched for a new bassist all this time, Sukanti, the lead guitarist of the band found a way to deal with this gap by playing bass with his guitar itself. He uses a thicker string for the 6th string and a processor to trigger bass while he plays his and bassist's parts in a song. Before they hit the studio this setup was tried and tested in several live gigs in and around Kolkata including in an open air gig at Jaipur Law University. The date for the release was not fixed however, the band has put its emphasis about a concert release of the album. The frontman Rahul wants to have a sit-down-concert kind of release for the album.[9]

After some initial balancing of tracks and basic mixing by Sukanti and Rahul at Sukanti's Kolkata studio in early 2015, the album was sent for mixing and mastering to Universal Music Publishing studios. It is expected that the album will be released sometime in 2016.

Discography[]

Ringside View
CassinisDivision-RingsideView-Album.jpg
Studio album by
Cassini's Division
ReleasedOctober 2010 (India)
RecordedJune 2010 – July 2010
GenreAlternative rock, Hybrid
LabelHMV-Saregama
ProducerSimon Henderson
Year of Release Title Label Language
2001 Animal Wisdom demo (with Shamik Chatterjee, Arka Das) Independent English
2002 Satyr9 (with Ludo on percussion, Arka Das) Independent English
2004 Only for a While (The Underground – Kolkata) HMV-Saregama English
2004 Living in the Loop demo Independent English
2005 EP Independent English
2010 Ringside View HMV-Saregama English

References[]

  1. ^ "THE BONG CONNECTION on Zee Studio". indiantelevision.com.
  2. ^ Chatterjee, Chandreyee (19 August 2007). "Rock on hold". The Telegraph.
  3. ^ Ravi, Arjun S (19 August 2008). "Sutasi Winners Announced". indiecision.com.
  4. ^ Kohli, Diya (25 February 2008). "Blowin' in the WIND". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2010.
  5. ^ Chatterjee, Arindam (5 September 2007). "City city rock rock". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 11 September 2012.
  6. ^ Banerjee, Malini (18 March 2009). "Rocking reality". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 29 May 2010. Retrieved 28 October 2010.
  7. ^ "Cassini's Division's debut album 'Ringside View' released". indianrockmp3.com. 8 October 2010.
  8. ^ Paul, Mathures (7 October 2010). "At war with the best". The Statesman. Archived from the original on 20 October 2010. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
  9. ^ "In The Studio: Cassini's Division -". Rolling Stone India. Retrieved 22 January 2016.

External links[]

See also[]

Bangla Rock

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