Cassini's @ MTV show Kolkata

Hi everybody!

Just a quick blog to let you know that Cassini’s Division (see http://simonhenderson.com/tag/cassinis-division/) my very cool band in India will be releasing their debut album “Ringside View” at the end of September!

There are plans for a SE Asian tour towards the end of the year followed my some shows in the UK and then the USA.

The interest in the band is growing more and more and I am sure the fanbase will increase internationally with this album. (see Rolling Stone article)

I have just completed edits of 1 minute versions so you can go check out the album at http://www.cassinisdivision.com/

Mon

btw…

I just made this video below, it is just some random footage of my journey making this album and something to look at while listening to the album sampler!

enjoy

I am in Islington, London with my good friend Savas, playing “Ringside View” at a serious volume on big boy monitors and mastering the Cassini’s Division masterpiece!

From Monday (when I deliver the album to the label) Cassini’s proper recordings (meaning produced) will be “Out there”!! This is a “Warts and all” recording, as you know me by now, I love REAL sounds, so when  you can hear the buzzy amp noise and the snoring sound of Ludo catching his 40 winks at the back of the studio floor, I keep it all in This is NOT music from a box!

Ladies and Gentlemen…I PROUDLY present “Ringside View” by the one and only CASSIN’IS DIVISION

Love it people, enjoy it…listen to it! Hey boys…JAI DADA

btw, here is us drunk in my guest house in Kolkata near the end of the recording (Raul should really do this in the middle of the Cassini’s set…don’t u think?)

Lunch Habit

The recording in Calcutta with Cassini’s Division is almost at an end, and as usual there is a new sense of urgency to get everything finished, more importantly because we are a 12 hour flight away from each other and not just up the road!
The recording has been very fruitful and I believe the Cassini’s existing fans will be pleasantly surprised.

I kept the recording as live as possible, and implemented the techniques I have come to be known for such as creative use of mics and spaces combined with amps (though not a full selection) as opposed to music from a box of chips and resistors. Snobby! I know! But surely real is better, in anything you care to mention.

Ideally, it would have been great to have a Vox Ac30, a Marshall 4×12 etc at hand, but you work with what you have got! What we did have is a great studio space and a nice selection of all the usual mics, and, most importantly, creative ideas and the will to use them!

I will be mixing in London before unleashing this monster on the world! So for now, here are some nice pictures.

Si xx

Edit, edit ...edit

Rumble guitar

The studio floor

A couple of years ago I was music production manager for a TV show called SUTASI, and on my journey at that time I came across Cassinis’ Division. My boss, Colleen Zulian had seen them while checking out some hot tips in India with the legendary Simon Napier Bell. Colleen sent me to Kolkata immediately to do a 4 day recording with the band to record some rough studio versions of their new material.

Fast forward to the present day when I received  a phone call from the band telling me they had signed a deal with HMV (Saregama) the biggest label in India and wished for me to return and continue what we started.

Below is the bands performance on Sutasi, and this is the track we will be recording today. We are at the halfway point now and the album is sounding really good. The band are playing a massive MTV show on my last day here and have asked me to join them, so more news later.

Si xx

Please visit the boys website for more info, this band are gonna be HUGE!!

Cassinis’ Division

India day 7 and finally getting into the swing of things!

All the illness has all but gone and I am back in the captains seat, steering this enormous ship known as Cassinis’ Division.

We put 2 songs down today and as we approach each new song, I am filled with excitement as to the huge potential of this band. Each song tells a very unique story, yet this is not a bunch of hippies making a concept album, these are a group of well educated, very well read, cool guys. They are polite and a pleasure to work with!

I can’t wait to play a part in unleashing this to the rest of the world.

Checkout my journey home each night (see video) and I will start putting some of this excellent music up, very soon!

Si xx

The recording with Cassinis’ Division is going really well we are averaging a song a day recording it really old school style, with the band set up live, focusing on the drums and bass takes mainley, and doing guide vocals and guitars.

The studio is in the HMV complex when the old pressing plant is still located. This place was opened in 1921 and was the second record pressing plant for EMI in the world, and all the equipment is still here. There is a huge soundcraft desk in the control room that is no longer working so is utilised as a table these days. We are using an O2R and Nuendo 4 on Mac, so the job is sounding fine.

More news later, off to sit on the loo…AGAIN

The flight was ok with Air India, although I had to wait in Delhi for about three hours, and strangely enough, I was not allowed to carry any Indian money with me, so it became complicated trying to buy a Tuna sub, but I managed it in the end, much to the contentment of a grumbling tummy!

The band met me at the airport and we headed off to the apartment the record company, Saregama (HMV) are renting for my stay. As always the journey was interesting with cars honking  each other and honking for the sake of it, and the kamikaze pedestrians I remember so well.

So here I am at 6 am Indian time and its around 2 am back in London, my brain is somewhere in between, but the bottle of whiskey I kaned with the band is easing in the jet lag nicely! I am at war with my old friends the mosquitos! It’s been a year and a half since we last did battle so I am now going out to buy some essentials, shorts, coffie and all the mossy pariphinalia I can find! Simon, hot, no…. fucking  hot!