Atomic Forest: India's Premier Psychedelic Rock Band

The late seventies in India saw thousands of Bollywood records being churned out, but only one album truly represents the hard-rock era: Obsession77, the only known psychedelic rock album ever recorded in India.

Obsession77 by Atomic Forest was created at a time when audiences were introduced to the likes of The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd through covers that resembled. The album includes covers of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Deep Purple as well as their own brand of original psychedelic rock.

The story of the band that made this landmark album is just as interesting as the rarity of Obsession77. The band had a line-up that changed constantly through the years. It included Madhukar Dhas, or Madooo, on lead vocals, Neel Chattopadhyaya on guitar, Keith Kanga on bass, and Valentine Lobo on drums.


Keith Kanga had lost both his parents at a very early age and was raised by his grandmother who ran a brothel. Music was expensive in the seventies, and it was the money from his grandmother’s illicit activities that funded Atomic Forest.

It was monetary issues and substance abuse that eventually dissolved the band. True to the rock and roll tradition, Kanga and the band began experimenting with drugs and it did not end well.

Apparently, Kanga was obsessed with drugs to the point that he would take most of the money that the band earned and blew it on drugs.

“Keith would do anything to pay for drugs. We had a contract for the Blow Up club at the Taj and a Vietnamese band came to Bombay, and asked if they could jam with our kit. The next day Keith told us that he had rented all our equipment to them because he would get more money, so we were out of a job, there and then.” told Madhukar Dhas. [via RollingStone India]



Kanga unfortunately passed away battling his addiction in the eighties.

At the peak of their popularity, Atomic Forest jammed with Led Zeppelin at Slip Disc, a club in Bombay, and even performed at Snehayatra, the “hippie” music festival.

The only album of the band was released after the band disintegrated in 1981. In 2011, Obsession ’77 was re-released by Now-Again Records in Los Angeles.

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