Raavanan Collectors Edition – Music Review

A Collectors edition CD of Raavanan was released last week, featuring five previously unreleased tracks, all of them from the background of the movie. You can buy the soundtrack here.

The highlight of the new set is undoubtedly the climax background piece Naan Varuvene soulfully rendered by ARR, Senegalese Kora player Jali Fily Cissokho pitching in with some native singing. The song sounded wonderful in the background of the movie, but in its entirety as a song it simply blows you away, scoring even above most of the songs from the original soundtrack. The acoustic arrangement features a heady mix of kora, accordion, flute etc laid over a haunting bass line. The second track called Lament Of Leaves is quite situational in nature, featuring some folk singing, apparently African, by Bruno Conn and an orchestration dominated by a harp-like instrument which again I guess is the kora. Restless Mystic is a short oud solo played by Seenu, and with its minimal orchestration doesn’t hold much on the entertainment front apart from the inherent haunting quality that the oud possesses. An ad lib sort of recital version of Kaattu Sirukki , Yaaro Evalo comes up next. And coming in the earthy vocals of Chinna Ponnu and Sangeetha the track has quite a clairvoyant air about it. But this song probably won’t find a lot of listeners going for it due to the peculiar sort of arrangement. And in the end is Kalingathu Bharani, a rousing chant which is again of a functional nature, standing out for its opulent orchestral arrangement.

A collector’s edition this truly is, especially for the magical Naan Varuvene. This one should really have featured in the actual soundtrack. In any case, better late than never. 🙂

Music Aloud Rating: 8/10

VIP says:

Loved your kora segments in the song. Really honored to see your comment here. Looking forward to more wonderful music from you in Indian music. 🙂

A wonderful experience recording with AR RAHMAN in the London studio for Raavanan