Acquaint yourselves with the diverse sounds of Hybrid Protokol!
Hybrid Protokol consists of two members, Aneesh and Soumajit, who share a common passion derived from Old school Electronic Music, Big Beat, Synthesizers and Music Technology. The band hails from Kolkata and have even won various awards for their music.
As musicians inspired by genres ranging from Jazz, Rock, Noise/Avant-Garde to even Bollywood, the band plays all their sets live, using a variety of music instruments like synthesizers, drum machines, samplers and FX machines. Their sound, therefore, is a “hybrid of all these inspirations and the gear”. “We carry all of this gear on stage when we play, so each instrument shapes the music we produce. It’s the ‘Protokol’ we follow. And since we’re based out of Kolkata, we had to plug our hometown in the name!” They quote.
Listen to their track Deep Beyond Belief here!
They are an Electronica act, usually working with and fusing Psychedelic, Breakbeat and Techno in their own fashion. Psychedelia and playing with Melodies is at the core of all their productions. “Our sound is mostly inclined towards the open air/festival dance music sound. We have a huge likeness towards Electronic Music which comes out of UK especially. We are pretty much inclined into the old school Bigbeat and early 90’s-00’s UK Electronica and people have actually found deep influences of that in our sound when they have heard it. We hope to collaborate with a wide range of musicians, be it singers or instrumentalists across genres, ranging anywhere from folk, to even pop music.” They say.
Listen to their track Kundalini here!
Starting off in 2014, the band has only had a handful of gigs so far- in cities around the country like Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and New Delhi. “We’re hoping to break into the Bombay scene this year sometime, fingers crossed! To be honest, it’s not the number of gigs that we are concerned with but how the people dance and react to it- and it’s a great feeling to see them respond to our music well.”
When asked about their inspiration behind becoming musicians, Aneesh talks of his childhood fascination with unconventional fields of work. “I wanted to pursue something out of the books, out of the conventional, so Electronic music happened. My father does get the credit for introducing me to it. At 7, he gifted me Kraftwerk’s album ‘The Man Machine’, and I felt a deep connection with that music. It was a small 6 track album, and I used to listen to that album over and over again at least 10 times a day! Anyhow, college happened, and that’s where I did some research and came to know that one can make this music on a computer- that’s where my stint began.” He quotes.
Soumajit, on the other hand, had a rather musical childhood. His mother was a violinist and his father is a vocalist. “I was introduced to vocal music at the age of 5 years and have learned North Indian Classical Music (Vocals) for 14 years. In my earlier days, I used to listen to A.R. Rahman, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar. Md.Rafi & the likes, and was introduced to Rock, Death Metal, and Hard Rock during high school. The electronic bug hit me when I was in engineering college listening to “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” by The Chemical Brothers. There was no stopping after that and I grabbed FL Studio V1.0 and started to experiment on my own to learn how to make electronic music.” He says.
They describe their musical journey so far as an uphill battle, albeit one that has always been fun and interesting. “I’m extremely grateful to have met Soumajit.” Aneesh quotes, “He’s a creative rock who comes up with amazing music ideas, and I’ve learned so much from him. Sometimes, it feels like we were destined to meet and make music together! The journey is not always positive, and that’s something musicians have to keep in mind and not lose heart. We’ve met and lost touch with so many people, in this short span of time, and it’s made us more realistic and practical about each step we take.”
Their advice to budding musicians is to not lose hope, be humble and to “always find the best in everything and keep at it!”
A sound engineer by profession, Aneesh works in a Sound Design/Post Production Studio in Kolkata which provides Audio Post Production services for TVCs and regional Bengali Films. Soumajit too has a day job, High Technology Solution designing for an MNC called NetApp.
Fans of artists the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Deadmau5, The Prodigy, Orbital, Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Trent Reznor and A.R.Rahman, the duo is set to take the Indian music scene by storm! We say this quite literally in fact, with Aneesh professing his lifelong dream of one day saving enough money to go to Texas, USA, and chase Tornadoes. “Of course, with professional Storm Chasers.” He laughs.
Like their Facebook page here!
All images are courtesy of the artist.