A 10-member band, with more roles than members — Project Mishram, a progressive Carnatic fusion musical group from RV College of Engineering, is generating quite the buzz in the city.
After a power-packed Independence Day performance at BFlat, the quite in-demand band tells us how they came to be, their experiences after a year of working together and more. One year ago, exploring Carnatic music as the core element, the three vocalists — Deepika, Shivaraj and Harshita started the band...
“As we started jamming, more requirements started to come forth and that’s when we knew we needed some more depth and weight, and got more members involved,” says Shivaraj Natraj who beatboxes the lyrics!
“But even though we have our specific areas, we are constantly juggling different tasks among each other like planning sessions, ensuring safe travel, mixing music, etc.”
In a band this large, it’s common to have disagreements and fights. But has there ever come a point when they have gotten tired of each other?
“Our meeting point, is that we’re all from the same college and saying we haven’t had disagreements is a lie, but thankfully, there has never come a time when we have gotten tired of each other,” laughs Harish Mouli, the violinst, who juggles music with his job!
“Deepika, Supradeep and myself are freshly graduated and have nine to six jobs, while the rest of the team is stull studying. Time management is quite crucial at this point but we make the most of our weekends during which most of our practice sessions take place,” continues Harish.
“But we also diligently practice at home and are constantly sharing new ideas through audio recordings and ideas on whatsapp!,” chips in Harshita, the vocalist.
With Carnatic music as the starting point, Project Mishram also infuses rock, EDM, jazz, and metal into their music to make it unconventional.
“We start off by taking two sounds to create a whole new one, and then we try a third and a fourth until there’s a part crackling with just the right energy and mix of all the genres. It does take quite a while to get it right, mainly because of the flurry of ideas and visualisations each one of us has,” explains Ram Srinivas, the bassist.
“But in this one year, our music has matured tremendously because we ourselves have learnt the nuances of different sounds. We are of course a progressive band and our music will never cease to evolve,” adds Ram, in conclusion.
