Interstellar Suite

Amin Bhatia's fascination with both music and electronics won him international fame in his youth. After winning the Roland International Synthesizer competition two years in a row, the resulting exposure launched Bhatia's music career. It led to projects with David Foster ('The Best of Me'), Steve Porcaro (Toto's fifth album 'Fahrenheit'), and a synth-orchestral solo album on Capitol records' Cinema label titled 'The Interstellar Suite'. Early synthesizers could only play one note at a time so in order to simulate and record an orchestra properly Bhatia was forced to learn how each individual instrument worked. He now uses real players and instruments in his writing, but his days with a Roland sequencer and a Minimoog have given him an unusual insight into the subtleties of arranging and orchestration. Amin's approach has been likened to the harmonic inventiveness of Jerry Goldsmith and the technical prowess of Hans Zimmer. For 'The Interstellar Suite' Amin combined and layered hundreds of analog electronics to achieve a warm orchestral sound rather than join the trend of sampling and abusing orchestral phrases. To this day he still gets requests from listeners and programmers asking for the sample libraries used. He has a hard time convincing them that it was all him. The critical success of the 'Suite' was marred by the sudden closing of the Cinema label. Original vinyl copies are highly sought out at web auction and record shops. Thanks to Internet requests, industry support and much legal wrangling Bhatia was finally able to re-release the album in 2003. A hidden track has been included as an apology to those who have waited so many years for the album to become available again.