Cassini's Division ( bn, কাসিনিস ডিভিসন) are an

Alternative Rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

band from

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

, West Bengal, India. Formed in 2001, they are named after the

Cassini Division The rings of Saturn are the most extensive ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirel ...

, the largest gap in the Rings of Saturn.

History

Testing Times and Change (2001–2004)

Cassini's Division was founded in 2001 at Liberty Hall, Rahul's Salt Lake residence when Rahul, Sukanti, Shamik and Arka started jamming original material. Much of the songwriting was to Rahul's credit, with the band coming together to arrange the music. In mid-2001, Arka's brother Ritoban (Ludo) joined the band on percussions. The band went on to record its first demo EP, ''Animal Wisdom'', in late 2001 with this line-up. In 2002 Shamik left the band and was replaced by John Noel Bose, a longtime musician friend of Rahul's. In 2004 Arka left the band and Ludo took over as drummer. The band has, since, remained in this line-up.

2005–2009

In 2005, Cassini's Division signed on as a house band at the hub of the Calcutta live music scene – Someplace Else – and played almost weekly gigs there for the next 3 years. Early 2006, Cassini's Division performed in Guwahati and Shillong as part of the initiative ''Jaago Grahak Jaago'' by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs – a consumer awareness campaign targeted at the youth of the Northeast. Cassini's Division appeared as themselves in the 2006 Indian film

The Bong Connection ''The Bong Connection'' is a 2006 Bengali- English language Indian film starring Raima Sen, Shayan Munshi and Parambrata Chatterjee and directed by Anjan Dutt. The movie is based on the lives of Bengalis in the U.S. and Kolkata. Plot The story ...

. Cassini's Division organised the first edition of ''The Calcutta Rock Festival'' in February 2007, together with The Supersonics. In December 2007, the band signed on for ''Sutasi'', a pan-Asian talent search. As part of Sutasi, they recorded four of their songs with UK producer Simon Henderson, performed in Singapore in 2008, and went on to become winners of the Wildcard category amongst participants from 13 Asian countries. The show was aired as a series on

Zee Café Zee Café is an Indian pay television channel owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. The channel mainly syndicates popular American and British television shows to appeal to the English-speaking population of India. History Zee English was ...

in 2008. Cassini's Division performed at the ''Eastwind Festival'' in New Delhi in February 2008. ''Only for a While'' appeared on the mixtape 'The Underground', released by major Indian label

Saregama Saregama India Ltd. (Saregama refers to the first four notes of the Indian musical scale); formerly known as The Gramophone Company Of India Ltd. is India's oldest music label owned by the RP- Sanjiv Goenka Group of companies. The company i ...

end-2008. Cassini's Division participated in Channel Launchpad, a rock band talent hunt-turned-reality show. The band was one of the 3 finalists and went on to play the ''Concert For Change'' at the Andheri Sports Complex (Mumbai) in May 2009.

2010

In April 2010, the band signed with HMV-

and recorded ''Ringside View'' with producer Simon Henderson. The album was released in October 2010 to critical acclaim. ''Rolling Stone'' (September 2010) described ''Ringside View'' as 'an eclectic and informed piece of work', and it swiftly made the 10 best Indian albums of 2010 (January 2011). Cassini's Division played the Greenpeace Earth Day Festival (Kolkata) in May 2010.

2014 & 2015

Cassini's Division hit the studio of Universal Music Publishing in the middle of 2014 to record their second album titled ''Animal Wisdom'' with Universal resident recording engineer Devashis Ray. This album includes works of Rahul which predates the band's 2010 debut album Ringside View. The album revolves around the concept of how all the species on earth, except human beings, coexist in harmony with the nature. This album features the same line-up of Ringside View except John Bose, who left the band and went to Delhi in 2011 to fulfil personal work commitments. While they searched for a new bassist all this time, Sukanti, the lead guitarist of the band found a way to deal with this gap by playing bass with his guitar itself. He uses a thicker string for the 6th string and a processor to trigger bass while he plays his and bassist's parts in a song. Before they hit the studio this setup was tried and tested in several live gigs in and around Kolkata including in an open air gig at Jaipur Law University. The date for the release was not fixed however, the band has put its emphasis about a concert release of the album. The frontman Rahul wants to have a sit-down-concert kind of release for the album. After some initial balancing of tracks and basic mixing by Sukanti and Rahul at Sukanti's Kolkata studio in early 2015, the album was sent for mixing and mastering to Universal Music Publishing studios. It is expected that the album will be released sometime in 2016.

Discography

References

External links

Official website