MUMBAI: I Am Bliss, a music project by Danesh Munshi, is one unique band from Pune. Identified as a post-punk, shoegaze band with garage influences as well, the band’s music can be defined as ethereal and ambient. Being a three-piece band, the members aim to prove how large they can sound with only three of them performing live on stage.
Needless to say, the members of the band, with all its distinctness, come from extremely different musical backgrounds. Siddharth Gupta, bassist, and Shreyas Iyengar, drummer of the band are already established in the indie scene. Both Siddharth and Shreyas also play for their separate band called Drawing Short Straws.
Danesh, vocalist and guitarist of the band says that they are in the process of recording their debut self titled EP which will be released in a few months. Although the project was started more than four years ago, the members’ personal commitments stalled their work for I Am Bliss. Danesh also had his own band in London, where he was until six months back. That is when they resumed doing shows and writing more music for this band, and in his words, they “started hitting really hard.”
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Talking about their music, Danesh said, “Lyrically, there are all sorts of stuff happening; it touches on a lot of things. It is nostalgic and straightforward.”
He went on, “It is more post-punk and shoegaze-y and I do not think I have heard that in a while. Some of the tracks are a bit noisy with a lot of feedback. They have a lot of raw-punk feel.”He admits that they live to play live shows and want to re-create the way they sound live. He says, “We are trying to capture in the record how big we sound live.”
When asked about the tracks they are working on, Danesh said, “There is this one song called ‘I Promise You’ which is a cheeky song about a guy hoping for something to transpire between him and a girl who is with someone else. It is a very garage-y song. ‘Where Are You Going?’ is a track where I am pretty much just screaming and whispering ‘Where are you going?'”.
He explained, “It is about when you do not want that person to leave but, you wish them happiness. As a result, you are caught in the middle of a struggle.”
“All our songs have a certain mood and a fixed atmosphere. ‘Daydreamer’ has a sad and dreamy vibe and they are all written naturally, parallel to the kind of memories that trigger in my brain and the disposition I am in,” he added.
The band played at the latest edition of Control Alt Delete in Mumbai and they blew the audience away with their intense atmospheric performance. The band has finished writing their material for the upcoming EP and is in the process of mixing and mastering the tracks. A few of the tracks in the record will be different versions of their older compositions that they have already played live like ‘Daydreamer’ and ‘Bliss’. The EP will be released independently for now and be available on different digital platforms besides the limited physical copies. Danesh also mentioned that they are looking for cool artworks.
The band is also planning to release a music video for which they have a few ideas brewing. Since Danesh will be off to Canada in December and Shreyas to Berklee College of Music, the band is doing as many shows as possible for the next three months. Danesh expresses his feelings about playing live, saying, “Playing live shows is really inspiring to us. It is about going out there and doing what we love. There are only so many places where we are allowed to go crazy and no one is judging. So, it is like a punching bag. You go on stage and immediately sacrifice yourself in the moment and we have to kill it there.”
