We're Here Because We're Here

Am out of blogger-hibernation for a quick word recommending Anathema's new album - We're Here Because We're Here. Anathema has consistently evolved in their song-writing and their musical style has changed over the numerous albums. This melodic/atmospheric album is brilliant, and I keep making comparisons to Pain of Salvation's One Hour by the Concrete Lake. This album's a must-buy. Also keep an eye out for the next album - Falling Deeper, releasing...

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Pain of Salvation!

If this were a competition, I believe IIT Madras is leading by a really large margin. After getting Opeth to perform at Saarang a couple years back, they had Pain of Salvation performing in Jan 2011. After the debacle of Katatonia at IIT Bombay last year, this concert was something I was really looking forward to, and it did not disappoint.Like my previous trip, Pavan and I planned a weekend trip to Chennai with the concert scheduled on Saturday,...

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Mood I and Katatonia

It took days of planning, following up, online purchase of tickets/passes, standing in line at 11 PM for pass collection, and skipping work half day for me to get IIT, Powai to see Katatonia perform live. What a waste!As good as they are in the studio, the live concert was unimpressive. But that could have been salvaged except that the people who turned up were, for want of a better adjective, stupendously terrible. Most people around me appeared...

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Year-end Metal

So the India metal-heads rejoice - we have now progressed from bringing over the fuddy-duddies of rock to newer, younger bands playing more varied styles of metal. The Great Indian Rock event happened - in four locations in India. I was in Pune to see Meshuggah, Enslaved, Tesseract live and was totally blown away. Awesome, awesome performances! I had my doubts on how the Indian audiences would take to math core, and they were validated by a rather...

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Trip to Ranganathittu

Ranganathittu is a really small bird sanctuary close to Mysore, a few kilometers off the Bangalore-Mysore route. I had a chance to visit it recently when I was in Bangalore and had a day free. It took about 2.5 hours to reach in the rented Indica (cost me about 1.8 k for the entire day trip) in really hot weather. Ranganathittu is little more than a lake with multiple tiny islands on which multiple species of rare water birds nest every year. The safari consists of buying a ticket on a rowboat that takes you on a 20 minute trip around the islands...

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Absurd

Grass in purple,and flowers in greenand the early evening dewseen as a lovely sheenI walk on the waterwading through the reedsAnd I measure my friendsBy their deedsThe brownness of the timeon the wall that plays the chimeIs a cue for myself and only meReminding me of everyone else I could ever...

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Change..

It's been a while. I've procrastinated. But hopefully, I should be able to update the blog regularly now. I have a new workplace; blogs are blocked in office. But with the supposed shorter work hours I should be able to write more often. There are are a few trips I made, and concerts I attended. Hopefully all this should be up next week. I could have started today, but I procrastina...

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The Mars Volta

I'd been reading about this band called The Mars Volta for a long time but never really got around to listening to them, and suddenly Pavan messages me saying they are good. And since Pavan listens to good music when he's not watching interesting movies like Tara Rum Pum Pum, I took his word for it and started listening to them. Well, right enough, the band is brilliant. A very progressive rock/pop band, each of their albums is distinctly different. They've experimented with themes, and no themes, instrument layouts and more. As far as criticism...

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iNFiNiteSaDNeSS

I want to create an island far far out at seaMade entirely of all the sadness within meAnd without my sadness if I beWill I have lost myself if that were the k...

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Goa in August

I think I'll make this sort of an annual pilgrimage - Goa at the end of the rains. The crowds have not come in yet, and the tourist places are just starting to spruce up in anticipation of the hordes of tourists expected. I stayed at a place called Marbella , in Sinquerim, with 4 other friends.Some photos -Click here for all phot...

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