“Emosanal Atyachar” from Dev D

February 9, 2009
Emosanal Atyachar

Emosanal AtyacharMy browser (Firefox) spell-checker suggested me to correct the word to 'Emotional' - but - no Thanks! Once you have stopped wondering (and laughing) about quirky spelling, listen to the most celebrated song of the movie Dev.D...

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And the brass band version: ek do teen char chhe…. where is paanch??

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There is a reason I put the rock version of the song first and then the brass band version, read on to find why.

R-rated version:

There is a R-rated version out there, though never claimed, but I have a strong feeling, that the makers of the movie themselves created it for ‘promosanal atyachar’! If you are upto it, find it on youtube or google it. To maintain the sanity of the blog, I had to resist myself posting the link. Its full of hindi abuses, and I believe, is sung by the same singer who did the brass band version.

Amit Trivedi, by now only two films old. But stirring the industry enough, just by his amazing unconventionalism. Pure creativity, unadulterated. First he made the huge impact with the track from Aamir, “Haara“. God knows where was he for all these years. From various sources I gathered, he was an arranger for Om, the fusion band’s debut album (remember the awesome sufi-rock track Maula? the song was later used in movie Iqbal). The album was composed by Shriram Iyer and Bobo (the erstwhile guitarist of one of the early rock bands in India, Shiva). Amit Trivedi also composed music for whoever that sappy singer named Abhijit Sawant is! Ya ya, I know who he is … don’t get too hung up over him!

But none of those earlier work has made me pause and take notice of his music - before I heard ‘Aamir’ and now, ‘Dev D’. Very creative and original. Very unorthodox and to raw (in a good way).

The brass band version has all its unorthodox treatment and shock value to get you hooked, and no wonder they have been using it heavily for promotion. But musically, it really doesn’t offer much. On the other hand, the rock version is very well performed and well sung (sung by Amit Trivedi himself).

I didn’t like the opening of the song though, the tingly keyboard patch and the female chorus ooohhh… part. It almost reminds me of opening of ‘Dil to pagal hai’ title track. So for me the song begins at the drums. And the way it takes off after that, no looking back. Some very powerful vocalss follow - the best part being the pause followed by big Aaarrrghhhh …. its crazy like hell! And btw, that Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh is done by none other than Anurag Kashyap (Director) himself. Amit Trivedi’s voice has the adequate gruffness to it, and is a good justice to the rock version. Have to say one more thing about Amit Trivedi influenced by himself - the ending of Hat Ja Re sounds just like “..dasti hi jaaye” line from his earlier hit “Haara” from Aamir.

The brass band version is just novelty and cheeky lyrics, and nothing else. Though great ‘promosanal atyachar’ material, the video is even more cheesy - two hippies in elvis costume!

In coming days, I will be writing more about few other songs from Dev.D. Amit Trivedi is one of the best thing to happen to hindi commercial music in recent times. So don’t miss a chance to listen to music of Aamir and Dev.D.

References:

The makings of Dev D (check the last 3-4 minutes of the following video, where they talk about music)

“Haara” from Aamir (music by Amit Trivedi)

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“Maula” from Iqbal (Music arrangement by Amit Trivedi)

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Posted in: 2009 – No Comments

“Sapnon se bhare naina” from Luck by Chance

February 1, 2009

This is the only song I will be reviewing from the movie Luck by Chance. Because I believe this is the only song of the movie that stands musically above the rest, and will be around for much longer after the movie is gone.

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Check the song out.

This one truly brings Shankar, the powerhouse of vocals. In many of the past compositions of SEL (Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy) trio, I always thought Shankar Mahadevan was way underutilized. Either they are churning out too many pop songs (more of Loy’s influence) or they are doing Rock (more of Ehsaan’s influence), and leave little space for Shankar’s classical background. I am glad they exercised those muscles in this song.
Its essentially a vocals solo. If you listen to the background, it remains awefully constant throughout the song. But its hardly felt, because Shankar in the driver seat, takes the song through so many variations, you just don’t notice the 4minutes of monotonus background. Great opening bass notes though. And soon, the loop based background track takes over. The entire song has hardly any organic part, except the vocals. Many of Rahman’s songs fall into the similar category too (for example, listen to Bombay “Tu hi re”, its the vocals that gives awesome variation to a rather monotonous background).

“Tu hi re” from Bombay

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or even “Dil se” title track, sung by Rahman himself (the ENTIRE song is in a single chord ‘E’)

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Way back, before Shankar Mahadevan assumed ‘Breathless’ middlename, he produced a fusion album with Hariprasad Chaurasia, Karl Peters, Sivamani. He did some scat style classical singing. I haven’t heard that style of hindustani classical rendering till date. I surely have the CD somewhere, I will try to include a clip here in future. Few vocal improvisations in this song reminds me of that album. Thumri style singing as per him in the video below. The portions where the drums fade and only bass grooving and then drums kick in, adds to the impact of the song.

Shekhar, the voice behind "Yeh zindagi to"

Shekhar, the voice behind

None of the other songs from the movie are worth reviewing in my opinion. They will fade over time. “Baware” has good energy, and even more enrgized by Hrithik Roshan’s presence in the song. “Yeh Zindagi Bhi” is sung by Shekhar of Vishal Shekhar fame. It almost feels like Shankar did “Desi Girl” from movie Dostana (music director: Vishal Shekhar), and so Shekhar had to return the favor. the track is liked by many, but passable. Shekhar should stick to music direction only, and give chance to real vocalists, whose bread and butter is to do playback singing!

Here’s Shekhar’s “Yeh Zindagi Bhi”:

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And here’s an excellent cover done by a friend George Kuruvilla over the backing track arranged by JaySwami.


Yeh Zindagi Bhi (With Jayswami) | Music Codes

Here’s the making of the song.

Luck by chance

While I am on the topic, a little opinion about the movie. An excellent debut effort by Zoya Akhtar from the creative powerhouse lastname, that rules the Bollywood right now, ‘Akhtar’! Its a movie about making movies. The good, bad and ugly side of it, and realism at its best. Beyond the gloss & glitter of Bollywod, what lies beneath, the underbelly. Beautifully written and acted by the new-age method actor Farhan Akhtar, and directed by Zoya Akhtar. Box office hit, it may not be. Did I like it? 100% Yes. Are everyone going to like it? Mostly No. And it depends on how much apetite one has for watching realism. Most Bollywood movies are of Escapism category. Okay - I am here to talk about music and not the movie, sorry, I got little carried away!

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Posted in: 2009 – No Comments

“Coffee Shop Montage” from Morning Raga

January 29, 2009

This is an outstanding track from the movie “Morning Raga”. Instrumentation-wise, that is…

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Indian Ocean, the band

Starts with a crazy drums fill, and the song is a roller coaster ride from there. There are big drops, fast moves, all very dynamic about this song.

The track reminds of the crazy drummer from the movie, enacted by a real life drummer Shaleen Sharma, an engineer by qualification (from IIT-Roorkee) and a musician by choice, one of the founders of the avant-garde music group from Delhi, Indian Ocean and later formed a band named Agosh with other engineer-turned musicians Go-pal and A-nand (hence, AGoSh). So all the craziness and action you see in the movie, are somewhat real.

"Paisa" by Agosh(On the topic, Agosh’ debut album was Paisa, released back in 2000, and composed music for the movie Zor).

Bass and Drums in Morning Raga

Bass and Drums in Morning Raga

The bass playing is awesome. If I am not wrong, it is played by the quintessential bass player of India, Keith Peters. There are portions where he moves as fast as the drums, and there are parts where he plays counters to the drums.

The vocals is rather bland, for the awesome backing instrumentation. The guitar provides a nice rhythm with the wah-wah, and the drums are happening and reminds me of, well, for no better comparison, fast moving Rajdhani Express!

Once again the keyboard shines, like many other tracks from the same movie. The nice flute melody rocks, and later he switches into an organ. More chromatic improvisation follows.

I just wish they had done more with the song, such as a bass solo of sort.

The blame for the music goes to Amit Heri and Mani Sharma, for creating one of the most innovative albums of the decade. While Amit Heri has been in the jazz scene for long, but Mani Sharma is little known beyond the Telugu film industry. If that’s the result of their collaboration, I hope they do much more together in future for us music lovers.

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Posted in: 2005 – No Comments

“City Interlude” from Morning Raga

January 29, 2009

This is the second song from the Morning Raga I am going to write about. I am totally in love with the music, even some 4 yrs after I heard the music for the first time. And pretty sure, this music is always going to live close to me.

The track:

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This song, largely a keyboard solo. Its an instrumental piece, solidly backed by a faithful rhythm section that is very groovy, and continuous. Guitar does a little, but very effective, in providing counters and some interesting rhythm patterns. Otherwise, largely the bass and drums holds the song together.

Morning Raga

Morning Raga

The structure of the song is very simple, so probably doesn’t have the intricacies of few other songs from this album which is colored with Jazz palette. Its a standard verse-chorus-solo-verse structure, but for the nice keyboard solo, the tune rocks!

Released in 2005, this album remains one of the finest of the decade in terms of experimentation, musicianship, and unorthodox treatment.

Music credit:

Amit Heri & Mani Sharma

I believe they do guitars and keyboards, respectively. Yet to find out the other instrumentalists on the band, as soon as I find, I will update here (if you, the reader, know, please write in the comments section below).

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Posted in: 2005 – No Comments

“Alaap Jam” from Morning Raga

January 29, 2009

This is going to be the first of a series of song reviews of “Morning Raga”, I am going to write over next few days.

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Morning Raga is one of my most favorite Indian jazz albums. Its one of the finest experiments to come out of the Bollywood music industry for sure. Purists of Indian classical may not accept it, but I think it is always cool to mix genres. And they have done an excellent job in putting in elements as far apart as Jazz and Carnatic classical into Morning Raga tunes.

All blame goes to Amit Heri and Mani Sharma to create this most innovative sound of this movie. Amit Heri (can be found here on youtube) is a jazz guitar player, and hails form Bangalore. Mani Sharma is a music director, lesser known outside telugu film industry.

Keeping with the theme of the movie, where an Indian classical singer revisits her classical roots with the help of a younger generation band influenced by western music, the music director duo has done justice to both genres (in some tracks at least, while few other tracks are pure pure semi-classical Indian tunes).

The instrumentation on this track creates a solid backing for the vocals improvisation on the top of it. There are no words, but just alaap (hence the name Alaap Jam). The rhtyhm section is all about its groovy bass. Its sad that the song is really short.

If you look at the attached picture, the song is a perfect sound for this image.

If there is a term called Parallel music as in Parallel Cinema, then the music of Morning Raga has to be it.

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Posted in: 2005 – No Comments

“Jhin Min Jhin” from Maqbool

January 12, 2009

One of motivations behind starting this blog was to bring some of the finest music from our times for the millions of Indian music lovers around the world. Some movies fail to make a mark at so-called box office barometer of success, hence almost everything associated with the movie fails to register in people’s mind.

This song Jhin min jhin is a perfect example! Maqbool as a movie is surely one of the finest of last decade from the bollywood factory. Though I can go on about the movie, direction, performances (Pankaj Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Tabu at their individual best), the dark-beauty of the screenplay, and is a must-watch for all movie lovers. Unfortunately, the movie failed to be a commercial success, though it gathered a lot of critical acclaim, but that’s a topic of discussion for some other blog. Let me refocus on this song.

First the song:

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Vishaal Bharadwaj, let me tell you - he never ceases to amaze me with his creativity, as a music director or as a movie director, or even as a writer or a singer! How can one person be so creative in all these different fields and yet be nothing short of the best in each of them! Rare breed indeed (though Farhan Akhtar has been added to that list lately).

If you are listening to this song for the first time, may be listen to it several times till it sinks into you. Because it gets more and more beautiful every time you listen to it. And the layers reveal one after another. There is quite a bit happening in this song.

Sung by Sadhana Sargam, Ustad Sultan Khan, Anuradha Shriram & Rakesh Pandit. The instrumentation develops gradually and Vishal has used the effect of percussioin and bass very well. The female parts (mostly sung in chorus) are double the speed, and Ustad Sultan Khan’s parts are half the pace. And towards the end of the song, the vocals of Ustad remains the same pace while the rhtyhm doubles up the pace. That juxtaposing creates an interesting musical pattern. The rhythm section is an interesting mix of bass and drums with Indian percussion.

Sultan Khan’s voice, as always, simultaneously demonstrates silkiness and with lots of earthy feel to it. Its the musical equivalence of aged wine. In some way, there is a touch of divinity in his voice - you feel the devotion when he is singing Allah ka pyaara woh to!

There is an alternative extended version here: Not much difference other than the initial bol (rhythmic vocalization).

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There is not much in the music video, the song is to be experienced in the context of the film. There is a little clip of the song (watch the following video @ 1m 34s) from the making of the movie interview with Vishal B and others from the movie. The video doesn’t add much to the beauty of the song, except the fact that song & the vocal tone perfectly demonstrates the exuberance of the situation.

I know in internet age, its sacrilegious to report something that is 5 days old, but this song review comes 5 yrs after the 2004 music release, but I had to do it, because I didn’t want to lose this beautiful song in the course of time. And I started this blog only in early 2009.

Other songs from the film are average, yet Ru-Ba-Ru is a decent one, and suprisingly rendered by Daler Mehndi (you will never guess its him from what we have come to know him as).

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And Chingari,  a song by Vishal’s better half, Rekha Bhradwaj (singer of ‘Namak’ from Omkara) is well-sung too.

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Vishal’s movies and music are one of the best combination of cinematic poetry that the Indian audience experiences. His experimentation with music goes beyond the human limit, if Maqbool is more traditional in terms of orchestration, he offers a different dimension in music of ‘No Smoking’ (though the movie didn’t work, but listen to the background score, its 100% pure jazz - sorry, I don’t have the audio clips, and in fact I am also searching for them).

Other resources:

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Posted in: 2004 – 1 Comment

“Alvida” from Dasvidaniya

January 2, 2009

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Music by Kailash Kher, Naresh and Paresh Kamath

Dasvidaniya: Music by Kailash Kher, Naresh and Paresh Kamath

“Alvida”: composed by members of well known Indian band ‘Kailasa’.

Kailash Kher has sung the song beautifully, and the music composed by Kailash Kher, (Naresh and Paresh) Kamath Brothers. (I hear even the drums are played by Kurt Peters, who also plays for Kailasa, so I didn’t get why they didn’t give credit to the band as music composer, may be some legal issues).

The song is a very well composed, has got nice guitar parts, harmonies, great rhythm guitar, and a great chorus section, all elements that is needed to make a great soft rock ballad.

From composition point of view, I always felt, they could have added a harmony in fifth at the lines “Ye hi hai sach to har pal ko”. If any of you trying to do a cover of the song, try that. Also, feel free to send me a link to any youtube clip or so of any cover version you have done. I will be happy to link it up (of course, editor’s discretion will be in full force).

A note about the movie, while I am at it. Its one of the wonderful little movie of this year, and a movie with a message. Watch it in case you have missed. Rated by very critical online movie watcher bloggers at PFC (Passion For Cinema), its amongst the best of the year 2008.

There was even a remix version of the song, but I thought the original version was way better, essentially because the feel of the song doesn’t lend itself very well to be a dance tune. But I guess, like in 80’s, many songs had its ’sad’ counterpart, nowadays, the ‘remix’ counterpart is a common inclusion. Check the version here.

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I would put the chords and tabs of the song once I figure them out. And if any of you have already worked it out, send it to me, I will put it here (with credits to you, of course).

Apart from Alvida, the other songs from the movie were so so. With due respect to Kailasa’s music, I am just trying to be critical here, and writing about the best song of the album. The song ‘Muskura’ sung by Sonu Nigam is very reminiscent of Mohd Rafi style.

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Do not forget to check this instrumental version of the same song, which has the true 70’s feel to it (accordian and clean guitar sound).

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The song Mumma by Kailash Kher is another good one too.

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Finally, play all songs here:

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Posted in: 2008 – No Comments