When bands are asked about their influences, it’s not often you hear Tesseract, the British progressive metal band and Carnatic vocalist TM Krishna, listed together. But that’s Project Mishram, a Bengaluru-based band that defines itself as a progressive Carnatic fusion outfit. They just wrapped up a UK-tour two months ago, and are all set to open for Czech band Modern Day Babylon, this weekend.
“We started out in RV College of Engineering. We did the rounds of fests and inter-collegiate competitions,” says Shivaraj Nataraj, the vocalist and beatboxer of the seven-member act. After bagging awards at events such as Saarang at IIT Madras and Unmaad at IIM Bangalore, they decided to go professional.
The band’s name, Mishram, means “mix” in Sanskrit and also denotes the number seven. Using Carnatic music as a common thread, they mix hard rock, progressive and djent tunes to create their songs.
Their song TamasaT, described as ‘a heady, progressive take on the ancient Hindu concepts of tamas and sat’, uses classical ragas with hard rock guitar riffs. Cynic Machine is another of their numbers that blends the traditional with progressive, and talks about disillusionment from society.
“For the upcoming gig, our 45-minute set list is heavily skewed towards djent and progressive tunes, but there are also a few numbers that are also funk- and reggae-inspired,” Shivaraj
sums up.
Rs. 799 upwards. September 21, 8.30 pm. At Fandom, Koramangala