Amogh Symphony

Amogh Symphony originally started as a solo studio project by Indian musician/producer Vishal J. Singh in 2004. “My interest in “recording” started in about 1996 (I was studying in 5th standard) with a Philips double cassette player/recorder with karaoke input, a Rs.300 Philips Microphone and a Zoom 1010 guitar effects unit. I used to record me playing drums on one blank cassette, acoustic guitar on another (with the first casette playing) using the Zoom 1010 as a reverb/delay/compression/flanger/EQ medium. That was between 1996 to 2000. I had a Hobner Jumbo Acoustic guitar (which I still have) to which I attached a cheap Kolkata-made electric guitar pickup with a Science practical notebook cover as pickup holder. The hollow body of that acoustic guitar was filled by my school uniform to avoid feedback. I composed my very first song in 1998 and I mixed and balanced everything from one cassette tape to another in that Philips recorder. Believe me, that was a nightmare. But I was really interested in making music and wanted to study more. Hence, Dad sent me to Mumbai to study sound engineering at the Digital Academy, Mumbai.” – Vishal stated in an interview with NH7 India. Their first full length album “Abolishing the Obsolete System” was released in 2009. In this album, Vishal played all the instruments himself and recorded himself. Around 200 physical copies were printed which were sold in 2 months on orders via online. “I wasn’t very sure how many people would like to buy this record and because I was running out of cash, I printed 200 CD’s myself, with a calculation that covers up my CD manufacture expenses. Test was successful.” – Vishal stated. The second studio album “The Quantum Hack Code” was released in 2010 with excellently talented and versatile American Drummer / Engineer Jim Richman from Virginia, United States of America. Jim has opened for various acts, including Joan Jett, Angela Bofil, and Cannibal Corpse. In 2006, he performed with the group “Groove Skool” at the Capital Jazz Fest at Merriweather Post Pavilion. He was invited to play at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1999. Jim‘s drumming styles ranges from jazz, pop, rock, and prog to fusion and metal. In Vishal’s words – “I am fan of Jim and his former metal band ‘Modulus’. I used to send him my recorded trials and errors and demo tracks to him on myspace.com and he used to appreciate them a lot. I approached Jim to play drums in the second album. He happily said yes and the rest is history.” The second studio album was way more improved, tighter, better written than the first one. “TQHC is like a movie without a movie. It was done all throughout 2010. I did not know what I was getting into when I said I wanted to join Amogh Symphony instead of doing a ‘project’. The learning/recording process was grueling. There was literally no point of reference to go from , and creating usable drums was very difficult. I did many versions, always looking for the perfect interpretation. Sometimes it was done a few months before , and since I was so wrapped up in all the tunes I did not realize it!. “ – Jim tells Indian music magazine Eclectic vibes. “Started drums in high school. I would play along with albums of The Who, Men At Work, Missing Persons, Chicago etc…a lot of classic rock. Went to college, studied music, played in the Jazz Orchestra. I became a jazz snob and completely lost connection with pop music for 5 years. After, I made a habit of studying with the best teachers on the east coast. Jim Chapin and Joe Morello were instrumental in my hand technique. I always have been into studying jazz. I play a little bit of keyboards, mainly chords of songs. I know how to put together chords. I think every musician needs to learn as many chords as possible.” – Jim tells Japanese webzine “Marunouchi Muzik Magazine” They have recently finished working on their third much-anticipated studio album with introducing the third Multi-Instrumentalist and Producer extraordinaire Andrey Sazonov from Russia. In Andrey Sazonov‘s words – “I grew up listening everything from King Crimson to Death, from Led Zeppelin to Blind Guardian, from Children of Bodom to Gackt. I enjoyed all of it. Being a kid I was taught to play a chromatic accordion, but ended up dealing with keyboards and guitars. Regular people like myself love unusual things. Never intended to write music, but ended up becoming a music producer and game OST composer.I tend to find something interesting in just about each and every genre and style the world can offer. Lots of interesting stuff (music, art, culture, languages) out there. I ended up combining the parts I like in my music. Around 2008 I started Dawn Sanctum project which combined synthpop with all kinds of heavy metal and electronica. The project released several game soundtracks apart from albums and EPs. Soon enough I got an invitation to become a member of Abstract Deviation which I gladly accepted. I got acquainted with many amazing musicians and gradually participated in the shred project called Robots Pulling Levers with Their Shredding Majesties Mark Hawkins and Vishal J. Singh. The RPL experience was super refreshing for me so I naturally craved for more projects in the same vein. After seeing ‘what I did there’ with the RPL music Vishal approached me with an offer of becoming a member of Amogh Symphony. Funny enough, I thought he was a pretty unreachable guy when I first heard his music (and I loved Amogh music!). Being wrong has never felt any pleasant than the moment he spoke to me. So that’s how I became the part of Amazing Soulcrushers 3 (AS3). (laughs). Just kidding. I see myself 99% as the composer/arranger and 1% as a performer. Sometimes it’s really challenging to get the technical capacity needed to pull some licks and tricks. Yet I’m trying to write humane music with maybe some little imperfections which make music tasty. That’s how I see it. I tend to learn from each culture I encounter, especially Asian culture. On the popular culture side, I am a fan of history/myth/sci-fi/fantasy books (though I would still prefer dictionaries and reference books), anime (especially stuff that came out before 2005), Japanese RPGs, fighting games (Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, Tekken and the related) manga/manhua/manhwa, recent Bollywood movies and many more. I guess my motto would be ‘We’re here to learn’. Learning is life for me. Not even a single day without learning something new.” from http://amoghsymphony.net

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