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| Edited By: Dyuti Basu |Source: DNA |Updated: Sep 23, 2018, 06:15 AM IST
When God is an Astronaut burst into the music scene almost two decades ago, they carved a niche for themselves in the early 2000 post rock scene among other giants like Sigur Ros, Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky. While it took some time for this brand of music to garner a fan base in India, the largely instrumental genre has made its way onto playlists among many a millennial. Now, with God is an Astronaut finally coming down to Pune as one of the headlining acts of NH7 Weekender, post rock fans in India, whose numbers have increased exponentially over the last decade, are at the edge of their seats.
And it doesn't come as a surprise to guitarist and vocalist of the band, Torsten Kinsella. "When we'd play at live gigs in London or other cities in England, we'd get a lot of people asking us when we'd come and play in India. So this is a great opportunity," he smiles.
With a completely instrumental sound that includes a lot of post processing, it may have been difficult to reproduce the same effect on stage, but Kinsella reassures this writer that the music is now 90 per cent live, with only a few pre-recorded ambient sounds and loops. "The drums, guitar and pianos are all live sounds. We have a metronome that keeps time, but we can go on even after it stops. So it leaves more room for improvisation," he explains.
Though the band has nine albums under its belt, Kinsella confesses that the latest one, titled Epitaph, which released this April, was the toughest to compose. Not because of the technicalities involved but the emotions, since it is dedicated to his late seven-year-old cousin, who passed away in 2016. The melancholic, downbeat tracks convey the tragic passing, even as parts of the album reflect a more uplifting celebration of his life. "Difficult as it was, the music helped his father to deal with the loss and also to strengthen family unity," says Kinsella, adding that even now, playing this album live can be excruciating, since it brings back the sense of loss from two years ago.
The tracks of this album also remain some of the most technically nuanced that the band has ever produced. Unlike most bands today, a high-treble, high-definition sound is exactly what the band wanted to avoid. So, instead of digitally enhancing their sound to make it clearer, they did the opposite – passed it through tape machines and analogue filters to create a sound that's vintage, haunted. "We didn't want a loud, vibrant sound. We were going for something more fragile, old and broken," says the guitarist.
The visuals that go along with the music often create an overall story. Most of the gigs have a live light show designed by Kinsella's fiance Derval Freeman, which adds to the element of improvisation and complements rather than distracts from the music. Though the band have not habitually used videos, either for their albums or their live shows for a while now, Napalm Records, which produced Epitaph insisted on a video. After some initial difficulties with an external director, the band recorded their own video. Kinsella recalls, "We used old black-and-white photographs from the Burns Family Archives [the world's largest archive of historic and medical photos]." The result is a video that breathes nostalgia.
Bringing himself back to the present, Kinsella confesses that coming to India has been a long time coming. The previous attempts, unfortunately, fell through due to lack of a proper technical setup. "Now that we can finally perform for our fans here, we are looking to have as professional a setup as we would have for any of our shows in Britain," he says. "We want to give the fans in India our very best."
