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.
(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
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.
