The saga of Odyssey

Music band Odyssey has managed to impress listeners across the globe with no album yet

May 28, 2010 05:57 pm | Updated November 11, 2016 04:58 am IST

ODYSSEY

ODYSSEY

Yogendra Saniyawala is an electrical engineer; Chaitanya Bhanawala, a student of interior design, Himanshu Bhardwaj, a production engineer and supply chain management consultant, Anand Mani, a civil engineer (all from Surat), and Shiksha Bali, a Mumbai biotech graduate — they seem diverse; but what brings them together is a passion for music.

Their budding band Odyssey has no album to its credit yet, but, intriguingly, its listeners span over 50 countries. Frontman Yogendra says: “We've received feedback from 51 countries, thanks to online platforms such as ReverbNation and MySpace.”

Their odyssey is a story worth telling. It all started last September. Yogendra, as the rhythm guitarist, lyricist and vocalist, and Chaitanya, as lead guitarist and backing vocals, formed Odyssey. Soon, Himanshu (keyboard and loops) and Anand (bass guitar and vocals) joined them, followed by Shiksha (drummer), who met Yogendra online. And, together, made quite an impact with their first performance a month later, at ‘Synchronicity 09', IIT Kanpur's annual festival — they finished seventh among 120 bands!

The band that started with two compositions for the Kanpur festival today has 18 in its kitty. Odyssey is sceptic about genres; the stress is on the lyrics. “The subject comes first,” says Yogendra.

They say their music is as heavily influenced by social issues and survival in the 21{+s}{+t} Century, as by different languages. It revolves around issues such as pollution, politics, peace, people and power. For instance, the song ‘Sturmkommen', German for ‘Storm Coming', announces the coming of a disaster created by man himself. The song finished fifth in an online competition. Interestingly, Remo Fernandez is said to have lauded ‘Sturmkommen' as “awesomely weird” and “weirdly awesome”. ‘Ventilator', written by Yogendra, talks about ‘Letting Go', about clinging to the materialistic world. Incidentally, the name of the band is inspired by Homer's epic and the film “2001— The Space Odyssey”, a story of mankind's journey to future.

Getting ready

Right now, Odyssey is busy with their first album ‘No hay banda', Spanish for ‘There is no band'. They go on to explain this strange title saying, when you listen to music, there's this illusion that the band is around, but all you see is a record playing!

As ardent believers in raw music, the band is said to not go in for a state-of-the-art studio for the recording. The album will be out by year-end. The band has also been approached to give a new feel to a mobile service provider's current jingle.

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