Akhil Kodamanchili, who is enrolled at a music school in Berlin, channels Linkin Park and Porcupine Tree on the electro/prog rock track
Hyderabad-based producer Akhil Kodamanchili aka No Hero. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Inspired by seminal nu-metal works such as Linkin Park’s 2002 remix record Reanimation as well as U.K. prog masters Porcupine Tree, Hyderabad artist No Hero aka Akhil Kodamanchili evokes a slow-burn, melancholic yet cathartic journey on his latest release “Call of the Void.”
The song taps into a sound that the guitarist, producer and vocalist has been digging into ever since we heard the song “Tomorrow Never Comes One Day” in 2016 and followed up with a hip-hop rap-rock collaboration called Sharam Masala in 2017 with artists Xcpt. and A La Moksh. Although he’s been on and off with music and focusing on his artist and production company The Sounds Within, Kodamanchili did release an experimental piece of “music for thought” called “The Art of Staring Into Space” in 2020. “I felt like I needed to do things alone again and I wondered what my core sensibilities were,” he says about the music he’s been working on.
Thematically, existentialism and observations from a micro and macroscopic level were all par for the course in the downcast, dark rock track, which is accompanied with a forlorn music video shot by Navneeth Krishnan. “I try to be stoic but music can’t be stoic. I gotta explore new spaces,” Kodamanchili says, counting prog band Tool’s vocalist-lyricist Maynard James Keenan as a huge influence.
Even as more concepts are being prepped to become forthcoming No Hero songs, Kodamanchili was actually supposed to be in Berlin right now, for a music production undergraduate course at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute (B.I.M.M.)’s Germany campus. “Hopefully August is when I expect to be get there,” he says.
Artwork for No Hero and Sidd Coutto’s upcoming single “What Would You Do If You Knew?”
By then, there should be at least two or three more songs out, including the upcoming single “What Would You Do If You Knew?” featuring the worldwide vocals of Mumbai multi-instrumentalist and prolific songwriter Sidd Coutto. Kodamanchili says he met Coutto a while ago in Mumbai and asked if they could work together. “He’s a wonderful, energetic guy. We sat in his balcony and worked on a track. I’m extremely excited to share that one,” the Hyderabad artist adds.
Watch the video for “Call of the Void” below. Stream on more platforms here.
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