The core of Midhaven is guitarists Karan Kaul (front) and Aditya Mohanan, plus drummer Aviraj Kumar (rear). The band started in 2011.
The Hindu god Shiva is known as the Auspicious One and the Destroyer—both of which actually seem … kind of auspicious. But in the realm of metal, the history of named-checked deities typically runs more along the lines of Odin, Thor, Mephistopheles, or even Cthulhu. Shiva, despite the impressive appellations, is rarely the subject of songs—with one notable exception.
That's the music of the Mumbai-based metal trio Midhaven, who, with the release of their latest album, Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt, now have two song cycles to their credit in which Shiva figures prominently. The band spent 2019 writing and recording the project, which was produced by Apurv Agrawal, and mixed and mastered by engineer Forrester Savell (Animals as Leaders, Karnivool). Then it sat in the can for a year waiting for the pandemic to subside. When it didn't, Midhaven finally decided to release Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt anyway. It's a concept album, based on the cyclical nature of time, mapping out the course of a soul's journey to enlightenment, with Shiva—in Destroyer mode, naturally—as an overarching presence.
'Primal Song' Music Video
Such heady notions are part of the decade-old band's DNA. They took their name from the astronomical term "midheaven," for the highest point in a celestial object's daily traverse, and started weaving songs into complex yarns with their debut EP, 2012's Tales From The Tide. Those three songs ended up being a teaser of sorts for their first full-length album, 2014's Spellbound, which explores the hallucination of a man who, in the imagined form of Shiva, kills the Greek god Apollo.
Seven years later, Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt has arrived like a … thunderbolt. Throughout, Midhaven combine operatic vocals and guttural growls with monster guitar riffs that sound like Godzilla tearing down high-tension wires over some unfortunate city. The first single, "Primal Song," assays their gargantuan sound, and the tonal fusion between guitars and bass (the latter courtesy of Jason D'Souza) is electrifyingly monstrous. Tracks like "Codeman" and "Para Brahman" may be more melancholic and anguished, but the riffs are titanic, while "Zhitro" and "Mahakaal" introduce elements of Indian folk music, using guitar orchestrations that combine the contemporary with the traditional.
"At some point, Mastodon really picked me up by the neck—just grabbed me. Brent Hinds is definitely a huge inspiration."—Karan Kaul
Navigating such lofty lyric and sonic terrain are guitarists and close friends Karan Kaul and Aditya Mohanan, who, along with drummer Aviraj Kumar, are the core of Midhaven. Kaul is also the lead vocalist, while Mohanan handles the majority of lead guitar duties. "There are very set roles that just came to be through our synergy," explains Kaul. "Aditya is the scorching guitar player, and I'm more of the backbone, heavy, 'chuggy' [rhythm] guy." And while their roles may be set in terms of guitar duties, songwriting is another matter. "We have this very interesting synergy going on," explains Mohanan. "It's not like one of us is composing a riff. It's like, one of us comes up with an idea and the other one feeds into that idea—adds or subtracts from it, and keeps altering it, and by the end, we can't really tell who it came from. It's the approach we've taken to every song."
They cite Black Sabbath and Metallica as influences, as well as a slew of other two-guitar bands. "At some point, Mastodon really picked me up by the neck—just grabbed me," says Kaul. "Brent Hinds is definitely a huge inspiration." For Mohanan, metal started at Megadeth. "Everyone talks about, 'Are you a Metallica fan or a Megadeth fan?' Marty Friedman is like a god to me," he professes. "I just worship him … and Dave Mustaine—that's where it started off. I love Brent Hinds as well. I like the way he approaches his reverb and his tone and his delays." Mohanan also infuses Midhaven's music with older sources of inspiration. "I really enjoy Bach, Beethoven, Mozart," he admits. "I went through a phase that was neo-classical. And then, around the time this album was being written, I was super into Indian classical and folk forms as well, like [Indian Carnatic vocalist] T.M. Krishna."
Karan Kaul’s Gear
Karan Kaul, who fronts the band, rocking his Gibson Flying V in the studio.
Photo by Mehran Sheikh
Guitars
- ESP Eclipse with Fishman Fluence Signature Series Devin Townsend pickups
- Gibson Flying V (2012)
Effects
- Animal Factory Godeater
- Boss RE-20 Space Echo
- EarthQuaker Devices Erupter Fuzz
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
Amps
- Laney Mini Ironheart (15-watt, studio only)
- Laney GS212VR cab
- Egnater, Vox, Marshall JCM800, or Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier (live, depending on availability)
Strings & Picks
- Elixir 12152 (.012 –.052; studio)
- D'Addario NYXL 1260 Extra Heavy (.012 –.060; live)
- D'Addario Planet Waves Duralin Black Ice
Nowhere is the Indian influence more apparent than on the closing number, "Bhairav." With its trippy, atmospheric, sitar-like outro, Mohanan says it is the most tonally explorative song on the album. "With 'Bhairav,' we wanted to get this weird transience that any Indian classical instrument inherently has. The only way to sustain a note for that long was through the 'twang' element in the sound. The transience that I'm talking about is that slight buzz that accompanies the sound of the instrument. We wanted to make it a lot more psychedelic sounding; otherwise you can just use the Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar pedal." In an effort to make it sound "spacey," they experimented with a metal slide, an MXR Phase 90, an EHX Holy Grail, and a Strymon blueSky. "That was all an improvisation," he says. "We picked out parts that sounded really great with each other and put it together."
"We would use really abstract terms to describe the tones that we wanted to create, like, 'I want wet fire.'"—Aditya Mohanan
Musically, the laconic vibe of "Bhairav" plays into the overarching theme of time and evolution that lyrically fuels Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt, but Midhaven cunningly manipulates the musical timing in "Zhitro," a song that intentionally speeds up over nine minutes and 36 seconds. "A lot of people don't notice it, but we actually increase tempo," reveals Kaul. Mohanan was in the studio with drummer Kumar while tracking, and says that, while it's natural to speed up without a click, "To keep the click rising slowly, slowly, slowly, is always a gamble."
TIDBIT: This is the expanded format artwork for Midhaven's new album. Karan Kaul and Aditya Mohanan used small amps in the studio, for easier tracking, and took pains to keep out of each other's sonic terrain—which was especially important, since all the songs are in drop-B tuning.
According to Kaul, there is "not a drop of digital" in their guitar tones on Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt. He and Mohanan are self-professed "straight-through-the-amp kinds of guys," and they attribute much of the record's massive sound to their producer, Apurv Agrawal, also known as Cowboy and Sailor Man via his chillwave/synthwave project of the same name. "He's just a fantastic person to work with," professes Kaul. "He really helped us sculpt our tones on this record." Mohanan says he has never seen anyone take tone as seriously as Agrawal. "He took our feedback and took it a step further. He added his own creativity. We would use really abstract terms to describe the tones that we wanted to create, like, 'I want wet fire,' and Apurv would just be like, 'You know what? I know exactly what you're talking about. And you know what? I can get you something even better than that.' That's that guy." Kaul jokingly says he's going to ask Agrawal for "dry water" on the next album.
"It's the kind of song where you need both guitars to be really cut-throat, really hot."—Karan Kaul
All the guitar tracks for Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt were recorded old school: miked amps and real pedals. For guitars, Kaul primarily used his ESP Eclipse, with Fishman Fluence Signature Series Devin Townsend pickups, which gave him three voices to play with. "I can control everything from just one guitar—how much weight I want to add and how much tone I want to cut." Mohanan relied on his Schecter Diamond Series SLS Avenger with Seymour Duncan pickups. "It's got a coil tap," he says. "I can get any sort of tone I want, at least for Midhaven, with that guitar, but my situation was a little more complicated. I think when you play lead on the stage, you want to be able to switch to clean channels."
Aditya Mohanan’s Gear
Lead guitarist Aditya Mohanan mostly relies upon his Schecter Diamond Series SLS Avenger but is seen here holding an ESP Eclipse.
Photo by Mehran Sheikh
Guitars
- Schecter Diamond Series SLS Avenger with Seymour Duncan SH-3 pickups
Effects
- Animal Factory Godeater
- Boss DD-3 Digital Delay
- Boss RV-6 Digital Reverb
- Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano
- KHDK Dark Blood
- MXR M101 Phase 90
- Strymon blueSky Reverberator
- TC Electronic Spark Booster
Amps
- Orange Dark Terror (15/7 watts, studio only)
- Orange PPC112 cab
- Egnater, Vox, Marshall JCM800, or Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier (live, depending on availability)
Strings and Picks
- Elixir 12152 (.012 –.052; studio)
- D'Addario NYXL 1260 Extra Heavy (.012 –.060; live)
- Dunlop 427PJP John Petrucci Jazz III
Because of the sonic bandwidth two-guitar bands compete for in the studio, Mohanan says "Bhairav" was also the trickiest tune to get, tone-wise. "It's the kind of song where you need both guitars to be really cutthroat, really hot. And it was so tricky finding a frequency bandwidth where both of us would not clash with each other, but at the same time complement each other, while being really high-octane." Kaul remembers: "Because you [Mohanan] recorded it first, Apurv and I were just looking at each other, 'How do we get this to cut?'" [laughs]
"It was so tricky finding a frequency bandwidth where both of us would not clash with each other, but at the same time complement each other, while being really high-octane."—Aditya Mohana
Another reason the guitars are likely vying for frequency range is that all of the songs on the new album are in drop-B tuning. Kaul says playing in that tuning came quite naturally, referring to it as "home," because it's a comfortable range for him vocally. But Mohanan says he likes drop B becausethe tuning adds a unique flavor to chord voicings. "When you play a major sixth on a low-end, drop B, it just sounds altered."
Midhaven's high-energy blend of full-blooded metal influences and Indian traditional music mesh to create a distinctive and trippy signature sound.
Photo by Mehran Sheikh
As for amps, they use little boxes, strategically, to get big studio tones. Kaul plugged into a Laney Mini Ironheart—a 15-watter—and a Laney GS212VR cab. Mohanan deployed an Orange Dark Terror, switchable between 15 and 7 watts, and an Orange PPC112 cab.
Other essential components of their rich guitar tones include an Ibanez Tube Screamer that Kaul employs to add a slight bit of gain to his tone. Mohanan says Kaul's tone is generally "a super wet, really warm, sloppy kind of a tone," and that the Tube Screamer "cleans that up just a little bit." Mohanan says his Dunlop John Petrucci Jazz III picks give him an edge, performance-wise. "It just glides across the string," he says. "And it's just really great for pinching [harmonics]. If you want attack, you can get that out of them—and they work really well with the coil-tap." Mohanan says the coil-tap was a game changer in terms of manipulating his tone. "Even in 'Zhitro,' when I'm switching from clean to distortion, I'm not just turning on my distortion pedal in that moment. I'm also switching from a single-coil to a humbucker—it gives that extra boost. I've experimented with that a lot in Midhaven."
In a way, the massive guitar tracks heard on Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt echo the conceptual theme of a journey to higher levels. Like the album's main character—the human one, not Shiva—the members of Midhaven have musically grown in the past two years, and, "in hindsight," observes Mohanan, "I think the album definitely would be different if it were recorded today."
YouTube It
East meets West in this 2017 live performance by the Midhaven lineup that made Of the Lotus & the Thunderbolt. The rock is there (check out Aditya Mohanan's solo on his Schecter Diamond Series SLS Avenger at 3:08), but the droning, microtonal influence of traditional Indian music echoes between both guitars in the intro's subtle ramp-up.
After eight years, New Orleans artist Benjamin Booker returns with a new album and a redefined relationship to the guitar.
That evening, Booker played a release celebration show at Euclid Records in New Orleans, which has become the musician’s adopted hometown. He spent a few years in Los Angeles, and then in Australia, where his partner gave birth to their child, but when he moved back to the U.S. in December 2023, it was the only place he could imagine coming back to. “I just like that the city has kind of a magic quality to it,” he says. “It just feels kind of like you’re walking around a movie set all the time.”
Witness was a ruminative, lonesome record, an interpretation of the writer James Baldwin’s concept of bearing witness to atrocity and injustice in the United States. Mavis Staples sang on the title track, which addressed the centuries-old crisis of police killings and brutality carried out against black Americans. It was a significant change from the twitchy, bluesy garage-rock of Booker’s self-titled 2014 debut, the sort of tunes that put him on the map as a scrappy guitar-slinging hero. But Booker never planned on heroism; he had no interest in becoming some neatly packaged industry archetype. After Witness, and years of touring, including supporting the likes of Jack White and Neil Young, Booker withdrew.
He was searching for a sound. “I was just trying to find the things that I liked,” he explains. L.A. was a good place for his hunt. He went cratedigging at Stellaremnant for electronic records, and at Artform Studio in Highland Park for obscure jazz releases. It took a long time to put together the music he was chasing. “For a while, I left guitar, and was just trying to figure out what I was going to do,” says Booker. “I just wasn’t interested in it anymore. I hadn’t heard really that much guitar stuff that had really spoke to me.”
“For a while, I left guitar, and was just trying to figure out what I was going to do. I just wasn’t interested in it anymore.”
LOWER is Booker’s most sensitive and challenging record yet.
Among the few exceptions were Tortoise’s Jeff Parker and Dave Harrington from Darkside, players who moved Booker to focus more on creating ambient and abstract textures instead of riffs. Other sources of inspiration came from Nicolas Jaar, Loveliescrushing, Kevin Shields, Sophie, and JPEGMAFIA. When it came to make LOWER (which released on Booker’s own Fire Next Time Records, another nod to Baldwin), he took the influences that he picked up and put them onto guitar—more atmosphere, less “noodly stuff”: “This album, I was working a lot more with images, trying to get images that could get to the emotion that I was trying to get to.”
The result is a scraping, aching, exploratory album that demonstrates that Booker’s creative analysis of the world is sharper and more potent than ever. Opener “Black Opps” is a throbbing, metallic, garage-electronic thrill, running back decades of state surveillance, murder, and sabotage against Black community organizing. “LWA in the Trailer Park” is brighter by a slim margin, but just as simultaneously discordant and groovy. The looped fingerpicking of “Pompeii Statues” sets a grounding for Booker to narrate scenes of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. Even the acoustic strums of “Heavy on the Mind” are warped and stretched into something deeply affecting; ditto the sunny, garbage-smeared ’60s pop of “Show and Tell.” But LOWER is also breathtakingly beautiful and moving. “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar” and “Hope for the Night Time” intermingle moments of joy and lightness amid desperation and loneliness.
Booker worked with L.A.-based hip-hop and electronic producer Kenny Segal, trading stems endlessly over email to build the record. While he was surrounded by vintage guitars and amps to create Witness, Booker didn’t use a single amplifier in the process of making LOWER: He recorded all his guitars direct through an interface to his DAW. “It’s just me plugging my old Epiphone Olympic into the computer and then using software plugins to manipulate the sounds,” says Booker. For him, working digitally and “in the box” is the new frontier of guitar music, no different than how Hendrix and Clapton used never-heard-before fuzz pedals to blow people’s minds. “When I look at guitar players who are my favorites, a lot of [their playing] is related to the technology at the time,” he adds.
“When I look at guitar players who are my favorites, a lot of [their playing] is related to the technology at the time.”
Benjamin Booker's Gear
Booker didn’t use any amps on LOWER. He recorded his old Epiphone Olympic direct into his DAW.
Photo by Trenity Thomas
Guitars
- 1960s Epiphone Olympic
Effects
- Soundtoys Little AlterBoy
- Soundtoys Decapitator
- Soundtoys Devil-Loc Deluxe
- Soundtoys Little Plate
“I guess I have a problem with anything being too sugary. I wanted a little bit of ugliness.”
Inspired by a black metal documentary in which an artist asks for the cheapest mic possible, Booker used only basic plugins by Soundtoys, like the Decapitator, Little AlterBoy, and Little Plate, but the Devil-Loc Deluxe was the key for he and Segal to unlock the distorted, “three-dimensional world” they were seeking. “Because I was listening to more electronic music where there’s more of a focus on mixing than I would say in rock music, I think that I felt more inspired to go in and be surgical about it,” says Booker.
Part of that precision meant capturing the chaos of our world in all its terror and splendor. When he was younger, Booker spent a lot of time going to the Library of Congress and listening to archival interviews. On LOWER, he carries out his own archival sound research. “I like the idea of being able to put things like that in the music, for people to just hear it,” says Booker. “Even if they don’t know what it is, they’re catching a glimpse of life that happened at that time.”
On “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar,” there are birds chirping that he captured while living in Australia. Closer “Hope for the Night Time” features sounds from Los Angeles’ Grand Central Market. “Same Kind of Lonely” features audio of Booker’s baby laughing just after a clip from a school shooting. “I guess I have a problem with anything being too sugary,” says Booker. “I wanted a little bit of ugliness. We all have our regular lives that are just kind of interrupted constantly by insane acts of violence.”
That dichotomy is often difficult to compute, but Booker has made peace with it. “You hear people talking about, ‘I don’t want to have kids because the world is falling apart,’” he says. “But I mean, I feel like it’s always falling apart and building itself back up. Nothing lasts forever, even bad times.”
YouTube It
To go along with the record, Booker produced a string of music videos influenced by the work of director Paul Schrader and his fascination with “a troubled character on the edge, reaching for transcendence.” That vision is present in the video for lead single “LWA in the Trailer Park.”
Grammy-nominated session guitarist, producer, mixer, and engineer Paul Moak stays busy on multiple fronts. Over the years he’s written, played, produced and more for TV sessions (Pretty Little Liars, One Tree Hill) and artists including Third Day, Leeland, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. But most recently he’s worked with Heart and Ann Wilson and Tripsitter.
Time Traveler
Moak is most loyal to a 1963 Stratocaster body that’s mated to a 1980s-vintage, 3-bolt, maple, bullet-truss-rod, 1969-style Fender Japan neck. The bridge has been swapped as many as four times and the bridge and neck pickups are Lindy Fralins.
Cool Cat
If there’s one guitar Moak would grab in a fire, it’s the Jaguar he’s had since age 20 and used in his band DC Talk. When Moak bought the guitar at Music Go Round in Minneapolis, the olympic white finish was almost perfect. He remains impressed with the breadth of tones. He likes the low-output single-coils for use with more expansive reverb effects.
Mystery Message Les Paul
Moak’s 1970 L.P. Custom has a number of 1969 parts. It was traded to Moak by the band Feel. Interestingly, the back is carved with the words “cheat” and “liar,” telling a tale we can only speculate about.
Dad Rocker
Almost equally near and dear to Moak’s heart is this 1968 Vox Folk Twelve that belonged to his father. It has the original magnetic pickup at the neck as well as a piezo installed by Moak.
Flexi Plexis
This rare and precious trio of plexis can be routed in mix-and-match fashion to any of Moak’s extensive selection of cabs—all of which are miked and ready to roll.
Vintage Voices
Moak’s amps skew British, but ’60s Fender tone is here in plentitude courtesy of a blonde-and-oxblood Bassman and 1965 Bandmaster as well as a 2x6L6 Slivertone 1484 Twin Twelve.
Guess What?
The H-Zog, which is the second version of Canadian amp builder Garnet’s Herzog tube-driven overdrive, can work as an overdrive or an amp head, but it’s probably most famous for Randy Bachman’s fuzzy-as-heck “American Woman” tone.
Stomp Staff
While the Eventide H90 that helps anchor Moak’s pedalboard can handle the job of many pedals, he may have more amp heads on hand than stompboxes. But essentials include a JHS Pulp ‘N’ Peel compressor/preamp, a DigiTech Whammy II, DigiTech FreqOut natural feedback generator, a Pete Cornish SS-3 drive, Klon Centaur, and Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man.
