Coldplay has released a new video, this time for the single Strawberry Swing. In what the band claims to be a “ground breaking” video we see Chris Martin donning a superhero costume and try to save a distressed damsel held hostage by a squirrel. Probably continuing with the spirit of puppet show thing they are doing for their current tour, the video is shot in a unique animation technique using moving backgrounds and other contraptions.The entire set is drawn in chalk. The creative force behind this video is a group of visual artists from London who call themselves Shinola. Previously Shinola had worked with Radiohead and Blur.

The video had a world premiere on Babelgum.com on July 20 and it will be shown at at Odeon cinemas before Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno and Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal.

Check this amazing work of art here.

The Coldplay puppets who featured in the Life in Technicolor ii video.

The Arctic Monkeys are Crying Lightning. Yup, that’s the name of the single from their latest album Humbug. Like their previous releases this one is will mostly likely shoot up the charts. If they are able to churn out tracks like this over and over again, the Monkeys will go down the history as one the greatest acts, in fact they have already made some history read their wiki page here. The instrumentation is simple and raw, but it’s very effective. The drumming is superb as ever and the guitaring is impressive. The single is available for digital download at their website. I hope the rest of the album is as rocking as this single.  Check out this video.

The 91st birthday of Nelson Mandela marks the launch of Mandela Day, an attempt to celebrate the legacy of the great man. To be held every July 18 from today, Mandela Day is aimed to be “a global call to action for people to recognize their individual power to make an imprint and change the world around them.” This year’s Mandela Day is going to be held at the Madison Square, NY and the biggest attraction of the show is the concert which would feature some of the biggest names in international music. Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Will.i.am, Queen Latifah, Wyclef Jean and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, just to name a few. To watch the show live, just scroll down. Also, please join the cause at the Mandela Day website.

Carnatic doyenne D K Pattammal passed away in Chennai today. She was 90. And with her demise the last remaining member of the famed female trinity of Carnatic music is also no more, M S Subbulakshmi and M L Vasanthakumari already dead. Overcoming the oppositions imposed on her by the orthodox traditions of her family, Damal Krishnasamy Pattammal made it big in the then male-dominated carnatic world. She was known as an authority on Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s compositions. She also dabbled in film music, though only for patriotic and devotional songs. She was part of the A R Rahman-Bharat Bala project Jana Gana Mana which featured over 35 top artistes in Indian music. We provide here a few videos featuring the legend’s singing.

Jai Shiv Bum Shambhu is an entertaining song, mainly for its bum bhole kind of percussion fused with techno music. Typically it is a Dum Maaro Dum kind of number, meant for a similar situation as is evident from the lyrics. The only turnoff is the Jai Jai Shiv Shankar at the end of the mukhda which sounds a lot like Hare Krishna Hare Ram. Runa Rizvi sounds totally different from her previous outing in Jaane Tu.. The male counterpart is Bonnie Chakraborthy. This guy is spelt so differently in each of his songs that I am having great difficulty tracking him. This time he has been credited as Boony in most sites!! The next song, Kiss You Day and Night sung by Bhaven, Banjotsna, Earl and Jankee, is a Pritamesque dance number reminiscnent of songs like Zara Zara. I liked the middle eastern sounding motif. Though not a great song it will find its buyers among the pub hoppers for sure. Its remix isn’t a lot different from the original as it was already loaded with a lot of techno stuff already. I found the kissing sound employed in the remix revolting though!! In Khoobsurat Bapi and Tutul deliver the best song of the album (I have decided to discount the faint resemblance to Tu Muskura from Yuvvraaj). Shweta Pandit and Vickeey B Joshi have rendered the breezy song with finesse. I didn’t quite like Vickeey’s voice though. Good return by Shweta though, after a series of low key songs over the past two years. Sun Sakte Ho is the title song and conveys the horror mood of the movie pretty well. Keka Ghoshal has sung well with Bapi. Though not exactly a hummable song given its genre it serves its purpose properly. Jungle Jungle sung by Jankee and Imran is the avoidable song of the pack, the typical noisy fast number. And the last song Na Koi, second song by Shweta in the movie, is another horror song, again a title song. I couldn’t fathom the reason for having made two title songs, but that in no way takes any credit off the composer duo. Na Koi is even better than the previous one.
Well what can I say!! When I started listening to this album I didn’t have a lot of expectations of it, given the previous exploits of Ramu-Bapi-Tutul combo. But Agyaat has been a pleasant surprise, a definite improvement on their history. Good effort guys!!

Rendered by the ebullient Sukhwinder Singh and Ranjit Barot, Mumbai One Way Nagri starts off on a promising note, the middle-eastern harmonium riff and everything. But even before you are halfway through, boredom starts to set in, thanks mainly to a stale tune. There are small segments where the song sounds interesting but when taken as a whole Mumbai loses out. Which brings us to the second song Ghoom Ghoom. Listening to the Ghoom Ghoom segment I had a scare thinking that I was going to listen to a Himesh-type (I am talking of the type that got annoyingly overused following Aashiq Banaya..) number. Thankfully it wasn’t to be so. After the initial part it moves to a more jazz-ish line. And this song, though a better one than the first by virtue of its freshness, again isn’t that engaging. For one thing it seem to be a hotchpotch of tunes. I couldn’t quite connect the various components. The singers Roop Kumar Rathod, June Bannerjee and Ranjit Barot do their part neatly however. Mister Hua Hai Aisa Haal Kyun is the best song of the album, though I got reminded of Pink Panther theme song on listening to this. This is another jazz song sung beautifully by June Bannerjee. This female has got a tremendous future ahead of her for sure. There is also a remix version of the same song which just reduces the jazz component and adds a lot of techno elements in the first 2 minutes. The song then changes pace and goes back to its jazz form.That again lasts for just 2 minutes following which it again regains its pace and techno elements. A strange sort of remix I should say. But entertaining nevertheless. Last song of the pack, Sha La La (She Is a Bad Girl) has the MD doing a solo. A slow paced soft rock song, it has a mix of Hindi and English lyrics and makes for a nice and relaxing listen.

Agreed that this is a comedy movie but coming from Ranjit Barot I expected more. In any case on the positive side there are two good songs that will occupy my playlist for some days to come.

The Ancient Astronauts  are back, this time with a turntable and a guitar.
Kabanjak and Dogu aka Ancient Astronauts are two hip-hoppers from Cologne, Germany. Ah! German Hip-hop. I was surprised, but then I have only my ignorance to blame, Germany had been fertile ground for  hip-hop for some time. Ancient Astronauts didn’t sound like a hip-hop group name to me and that was just the beginning because Ancient Astronauts is somewhat different from the usual hip-hop stuff you are generally treated to. According to Wikipedia, Ancient Astronauts are extra-terrestrials who visited during the pre-historic times, there are theories which suggest the deities in most of the religions are these ancient astronauts, the Doju figurines from pre-historic Japan being an example.

The Ancient Astronauts from our times have released a new album, We are to answer. The album starts with an airy, atmospheric track called “From the Sky“, as if to signal the landing of the astronauts. The next track is called “I came running“, it is basically  guitar loops and ambient noises mixed with break beats and some grace.“The Classic“ features the alternative hop-hop group Pharcyde. This is classic hip-hop meeting the present. The track is embellished with fusion in the form a flute and some turntable exploits. There is a spacey, weightless feeling to these tracks, with a constant backdrop of break beat. You get a feeling of listening to a hip-hop mutation of Radiohead, low-fi melacholy stuff. In hip-hop circles this kind of music is called down-tempo.

Just when I started categorizing AA as down tempo, “Dark Green Rod” started playing. This song features Ulf Stricker, a German drummer. This is an explosive track and seems to change the tempo of the album completely. Almost a rude awakening, but once you get into the groove you won’t notice anything other than the rhythm. The next song is an evocative number featuring Phat Old Mamas.

In Risin High, AA have roped in Raashan Ahmad. The song brings Gorillaz to my mind. There is a flute playing in between Ahmad’s rap verses and that is very cool. “Lost in Marrakesh” is the kind of song which you can use as back ground score in a movie for a scene when your hero is vainly searching for his heroine among sand dunes with a hot breeze for company. There is very strong Middle Eastern feel to the song (as the name suggests) with the Arabic beats and the sound of bells. The song can easily be  the pick of the album for it’s sheer ingenuity. The blend of varied instruments is perfect and the resulting sound is simply mind blowing. The next number is a reggae track rendered beautifully by Tippa Irie. The next track, “Everybody” sounds like an acid jazz track with lots of guitars and drums. The bass line is superb and elevates the song to a different level all together. Oblivion featuring Azeem and DJ Zeph is a turntable riot. “Surfing the Silvatide” can be called atmospheric reggae, the whole album is made around the concept of an ET visiting earth, having some fun here and finally flying back to space. The final track Crescent Moon kind of validates my theory, this is a trippy track with a sci-fi feel. The song starts with a radio announcer from the 30′s welcoming the travelers “to the sounds of man in space”. The funny thing about this “sounds of man in space” is that space is generally considered devoid of sound as its pure vacuum, all the astronauts will get to hear is their breathing and voices of their colleagues. And towards the latter half of the song with almost 90s left the track goes silent!! I told you, you can’t hear in space! Then after 30s or a creepy voice says something like AA has returned to the space. The sound and mood of the song might have been inspired by classic science fiction movies and has an eerie feeling to it, Through out the album AA have consciously tried to add these sounds to the songs.

The album art is a reference to the Pioneer plaque, which was sent to outer space on NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft, as a “Hi there!” to any alien life form which may find it. Last time when the Ancient Astronauts supposedly came to Earth they were turned into gods, these days the closest thing that you can get to being worshiped is becoming a pop star. Ancient Astronauts have the stuff to make it big, whether it will become reality or not needs to be seen.

On the whole this album is worth its money. Looks like lots of experimentation has gone into this body of work. Considering the amount of fusion it has I would categorize it as World Music. If you are the type of person who likes to listen to new sounds and can appreciate some real creative work, this album might lit up your day.

Resuming her Sweet and Sticky tour in London on the 4th of July, pop singer Madonna paid a touching tribute to the King of Pop midway through her concert. While she was performing her superhit number Holiday images of Michael Jackson flashed up on screens behind her. Subsequently a Jackson impersonator came in the trademark black and white attire of the star and danced to short pieces from Billie Jean and Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. “Let’s give it up for one of the greatest artists the world has ever known, Michael Jackson! Long live the king,” Madonna said after that.  Incidentally Madonna was performing at O2 Arena, the same venue where MJ was planning his comeback with the This Is It concerts. That was a nice gesture, Madonna! Here is the video.

This is slightly old news but since I got to know of this only today and since I found the song to be a must-listen I decided to post the news anyways. I am sure the band Zeest needs absolutely no intro for the youth of the Indian subcontinent. Their song BC Sutta was so much of a rage in colleges that there is absolutely minimal chance you haven’t heard it at least once. (If you haven’t then you really gotta be rethinking what you were doing while in college after all!!)
Well the point is that early this year Zeest released their next song which they called 100 rupai, meant as a dedication to the current economical scenario. According to the band “the song is a story of a financially frustrated Indo-Pak’s youth life.” We think the song is a brilliant follow up to their previous hit. Another youthful song with simple conversational lyrics and soft-rockish feel. The guitar segments are especially worth mention. Plus, this song is zero on abuse quotient which is saying something after Sutta!! I really wonder whether it is for lack of publicity that this song hasn’t caught up after so many months of release. In any case, people reading this article please try to spread the word about this song. Its really a must-listen. The band is apparently working on their debut album currently. Making even a conservative extrapolation from Sutta and 100 rupai, that is going to be some album!! Here is the song for you. You can also download it at their website.