Anish Sood, also known by his alias, Anyasa (born 22 November 1989), is an Indian music producer, songwriter and DJ. He is currently signed to English deep house label Anjunadeep and released his debut Gaya EP as Anyasa in July 2021.[1]
Early life
Anish Sood was born and brought up in Goa, India. He attended high school in Vasco da Gama, Goa. Anish holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Goa Engineering College. His father and uncle are guitar players and he started collecting cassettes and CDs at the age of 9.[2] Anish's first exposure to electronic music was Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance podcast[3] and he started DJing in high school at the age of 15, soon gaining popularity for the college parties he organized and performed at. He quickly moved on to playing local nightclubs in Goa and soon made regular nightclub and festival appearances.[4]
Anish signed on a residency at a local club where he started booking and performing with talent from around the country.[11] This is where he connected with Mumbai-based promoter Submerge who started booking him at shows around the country.[12] In 2010, Anish entered the Sunburn Anthem remix contest[13] along with his childhood friend Rishabh Joshi and their remix for Nadia Ali's Love Story won them a slot at Sunburn Festival.[14] He released his debut international single in 2011 on Trance legend Marcel Woods's imprint Musical Madness.
2012–13: Invasion Festival and Hello World Tours
Anish performed as direct support to David Guetta on his maiden India tour in March 2012 at Invasion Festival.[15] His performance was widely acclaimed and this helped catapult him to the forefront of the Indian electronic scene.[citation needed] He subsequently supported David Guetta on all his Indian tours.[16][17]
In April 2012, Anish released his first EP on Dutch artist Miss Nine's 925 Music label featuring vocals by Indian singer/songwriter Ramona Arena.[18] He followed this up with another EP featuring Ramona titled "Hello World" and later released a single featuring British singer/songwriter Zoe Klinck titled "We Won't Stay".
In August 2013, Anish announced a 6 city tour in to promote his new single "Hello World" with Ramona Arena. They performed in New Delhi, Kolkata, Goa, Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore with Anish DJing and Ramona singing live.[19]
2014–16: Sunburn On Air, Superfly, Tomorrowland Unite
In April 2014, Anish won the prestigious MyFav Best House DJ and DJ Of The Year awards and was once again voted MyFav Best House DJ in 2015.[20] In May 2014, he also launched a weekly podcast, Sunburn On Air in collaboration with Sunburn Festival.[21] The podcast has featured guestmixes by artists such as Afrojack, Hardwell and MAKJ to name a few. The podcast was discontinued in 2016.
In April 2015, Anish collaborated with popular Indian singer Anushka Manchanda and upcoming indie producer Nanok to release "Superfly". The track peaked at #3 on the iTunes India chart.[22]
On 13 December 2015, Anish performed alongside Hardwell at a free concert entitled "The World's Biggest Guestlist" in Mumbai. All the proceeds of the festival were donated to the Magic Bus Charity Project, which enables children from poor backgrounds to achieve better education in co-operation with the United We Are Foundation and Guestlist Events.[24][25]
Towards the end of 2016 he released a remix of Autograf's Metaphysical which has since become one of his most successful releases to-date with over 700,000 plays on Spotify as well as being licensed in the OST for Ubisoft's video game Steep.
2017–2020: Class Action, Future Perfect
Anish started 2017 with the launch of his own label "Class Action" and the single "Don't Stop" featuring vocals from Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Charlie Sputnik.[28][29] The track received widespread media attention and peaked at #6 on the Music Week Club Charts.[30] He followed this up with another single titled "Going Under" this time featuring London based singer/songwriter Andy Wilson-Taylor.[31]
Anish's single "Starry Night" featuring LA-based singer Zach Sorgen and Atlanta-based rapper Kelechi was released on 24 November accompanied by a music video shot on the Amalfi Coast.[32] "Starry Night" won an award for Best Electronica/Dance Single at the Independent Music Awards in New York, thus making him the first Indian to win this award.[33]
He also supported Norwegian DJ and producer Kygo on his debut India tour[34] and performed at It's The Ship, Singapore[35] and Womb, Tokyo.[36]
In February 2018, Anish released the single "Castles" featuring vocals by Canadian-Indo singer Jonita Gandhi.[37] The track was accompanied by a music video shot in Cappadocia.[38]
Anish released two singles in 2020 with Indian American singer/songwriter Lisa Mishra titled 'Running Back To You' [39] and French songwriter Charlie Sputnik titled 'Say My Name'.
On 18 July 2020, Anish Sood, Ritviz and Nucleya conducted an online virtual concert named retroFuture.[40]
2021-Present: Anyasa, Anjunadeep
In July 2021, Anish rebranded his artist project to Anyasa which translates to "spontaneous and effortless" in Sanskrit.[41] He signed with English deep house label Anjunadeep and is the first Indian artist signed to the label.[42]DJ Mag included him in its "12 emerging artists to watch" list in October 2021.[43]
Sood is also very active in the international dance music conference circuit and he was the curator for Amsterdam Dance Event's Global Sessions in Mumbai.[51] He has also been invited to speak at International Music Summit[52] and Tokyo Dance Music Event.[53]
