The power of one

Angad Bhatia as Meddler

Life has come full circle for Angad Bhatia. The guitarist first picked up the instrument when he was in school, in class five, and was then introduced to the concept of home recording a few years later, when he was 16. "I figured out that I could download drum samples and produce music in my bedroom. I was also really inspired by bedroom guitarists who were like one-man bands," Bhatia says.

But he met a bassist in college and the two of them decided to form a prog-metal band called Festacorn. Next, another band called GreyFade needed a guitarist for a few shows and contacted him to fill in, only for Bhatia to be made a permanent member after the original guitarist quit the act. Suddenly, the youngster found himself in two outfits. He got caught up in releasing music with them and even started a new project called CandyFloss with a friend because he'd always been attracted to synth-pop and wanted to do something in that space. And all this led to his bedroom falling silent, so to speak.

That is, until the pandemic hit. The shows he'd been playing at with the bands came to a stop. "There wasn't any cohesive writing either because we were having trouble expressing ourselves," 23-year-old Bhatia confesses, adding that he was trying to find a creative outlet to fill this vacuum. That's when Medddler happened. It's a solo project he started in September last year that entails a post-progressive metal sound. He's now released an album, Upsurge, under that moniker this month.

The record builds a sonic story of a kingdom in ruins by the sea in ruins, where all the houses are decrepit and there seems to be no hope left. But there is a huge wave rising from the water that brings the promise of a new dawn. "That's the picture I wanted to paint, though the only tools I had were the song titles, album artwork, and its name," Bhatia says, adding that he will continue to create music as Medddler though his different bands are also now in motion again. He's got the best of both worlds, in that sense.

Log on to youtube.com