Insomnia (band)

Insomnia (Bengali: ইনসমনিয়া) was the first psychedelic rock band from Kolkata, West Bengal. The band's repertoire included both English and Bengali songs. The band has an album each in English (Cry of the Spirit - self released) and Bengali (Proloyer Shomoye – Asha Audio). Insomnia were also quite adept at executing live music for theatre, being part of the act itself, in plays such as Peacewards (directed by Jayant Kripalani, produced by Red Curtain Productions, based on monologues written by Manjula Padmanabhan), a 3rd theatre version of Rokto Korobi (written by Rabindranath Tagore, conceptualised by Badal Sarkar, directed by Parnab Mukherjee, starring Sudipta Chakraborty) and numerous other plays. "Opekkha" from their Bengali album Proloyer Shomoye was part of the original soundtrack of the first Bengali sex comedy movie Aamra (produced by Venkatesh films, directed by Mainak Bhaumik, cast – Parambrata Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Rudranil Ghosh, Nilanjana, Ananya Chatterjee, Kaushik Ghosh, Rajatava Datta, Momo).
Cry of the Spirit' was the debut album of Insomnia. The album showed the original sound of Insomnia which shifted heavily later on after moving to Bengali language abandoning English.
Insomnia recorded their debut album titled Cry of the Spirit at Studio Vibrations, Kolkata between September and October 2003. As the name suggests, the album is about a human being's loneliness of the soul. Musically, the album is loosely based on experimental Classic Rock, amalgamated with Post-modern synthesizers. Mixed at Studio Vibrations and produced by brand developer Sumit Roy, the album was released in September 2004 at Someplace Else, The Park and is on private circulation and available on Soundcloud.
Proloyer Shomoye is the second full-length studio album by, Insomnia, and their first Bengali album. It was recorded at Dream Digital Inc., Kolkata between May and August 2006. Proloyer Shomoye is a reflected contemporary times that we live in, the times of turbulence. With this album, Insomnia radically changed their sonic direction to New Age Alternative. Mixed at Dream Digital Inc. and mastered at Edensound Mastering, Melbourne, the album was launched in September 2006 at Octane, Gariahat Mall under the banner of Asha Audio.
Insomnia plugged in for the first time in 1999 as the South Point High School (Kolkata India) school band. The initial line up of Subho, Rohit, Dipanjan and Bodhi went on to win most of the school fests in the following years playing mostly covers of every genre. The next three years the band went through self-discovery writing their own music. It was in 2001 when Dodo and Buti joined completing the band. The bass player, Dipanjan, also the founding member, left and Tito joined. Ninnai, a long time friend of the band was the last to join as the second vocalist in 2002 end. The band's sound was defined by Bodhi's poetry and elegant playing, Buti's arrangements, Subho's wild stage antiques, Ninnai's psychedelic performances, Dodo's emotion rich voice and Rohit's act as the backbone. Ultimately the psychedelic sound evolved to a heavy mix of rock, electronica and western classical genres.
Insomnia's first show as a professional outfit was on 7 July 2002 in Music World, Park Street and it went on to reach great heights for the next two years as the kids were recognized as true rockers. They worked with veteran ad man Sumit Roy who drove the band to create a sound what they called Visionary Rock.
In 2004 Buti left to join Cactus while a dispute among members led to Subho, one of the founder members and driving force of the band leaving. Since then the band went through many line-up changes. However against all odds they stuck on to continue explore and create more music.
Noteworthy performances by the band: