Today is Children’s Day. Also, World Diabetes Day. But for Indian music lovers (Malayalis primarily) this day is extra-special for another reason.  This day, 50 years ago, under the tutelage of composer M B Sreenivasan, a young singer named Kaattaassery Joseph Yesudas made his debut as playback singer by singing the now famous poem beginning with Jaathi Bhedham, Matha dwesham, and an era began in Indian film music. Over the years the man has been part and parcel of every Malayali’s life, he has given us more than enough music to cherish over a life time. True to the first lines he sang, his musical influence has transgressed religion and caste. Having contributd a majority of his classics in Malayalam and Tamil, it was rather unfortunate that a lot of his greatness went unnoticed up North, but in Hindi too there was a fair share of wonderful songs he rendered. In any case, on this 50^th anniversary, we present to you an opportunity to listen to at least some of that awesomeness you might have missed, through a compilation of some of his best renditions in the three languages. We had planned to create a playlist of 50, but KJY has too many good songs. And in our defense, 62 in octal system does translate to 50.

(The sketch featured was drawn live by the brilliant Keshav at the Music Academy a few years back. Thanks a lot to him for allowing to use this)

There is nothing very new about Mazhaneer Thullikal, the mood, the instrumental flourishes, the singing by Unni Menon are all bound to remind of some song or the other at different points. But despite all this, the song is one hell of an earworm! Sedate arrangement built around a very catchy tune – with charming results. The trippy second song Moovanthiyay, though not on par with Mazhaneer, is a decent listen, Vijay Yesudas doing a nice job on the vocals. And with that ends the soundtrack (or so I believe from updates I have as of now).

Very short soundtrack this, for V K Prakash’s Beautiful (quite surprising given the director’s musical taste), but with one track that would rate as composer Ratheesh Vegha’s most impactful composition yet.

Music Aloud Rating – 6.5/10

If I were to pick one thing I have been most cynical about in music, it would be someone reinterpreting A R Rahman’s music. And there have been quite a few instances that cemented my cynicism. I have heard cringe-worthy instrumental adaptations of many of his works. And then there is Hariharan. Notwithstanding the immense respect I have for his singing, I have found his improvs on ARR songs almost always been avoidable. But in Episode 4 of MTV Unplugged India there happened a cover of Genda Phool from Ranjit Barot that I would gladly quote as an occasion where I was proven wrong. The occasion was Rekha Bhardwaj appearing for Unplugged, and in her own words they were presenting an urbanized version of the Dilli 6 song. And a true urbanization it was – the beatboxing from Allan, the rap from Kunal (whose lyrics could probably have been better, but given the way the rap added to the grooviness I am willing to ignore that), the awesome Kurt Peters on drums, the bluesy phrases on the piano, the basslines, the effect was brilliant! But even the urbanization was not without elements of fusion, the composer providing the classical-based garnishing from North and South – Shakthidharan from Kerala on the morsing, Arshad Khan on israj and some lovely shehnai by Ramchander. Add to all these the flawless rendition by Rekha, and I was absolutely floored!

Earlier the night kicked off with Rekha soulfully rendering a sufi piece from her 2004 album Ishqa Ishqa called Tere Ishq Mein. I had not heard this song earlier, but I liked what I heard on the show. For this episode Barot had brought in a dedicated strings section which was having a marked effect on the whole sound, especially towards the climactic end where the violins, the harmonies all came together quite nicely.  She next paid a tribute to NFAK by singing one of his famous Tere Bin Nahi Lagda. Well adapted in fact, but I guess once you get used to a song actually sung by Nusrat it is difficult not to have a bias against any other rendition. After Genda Phool the next song was again one of her own Bollywood ones, this time from the movie that won her the National Award, Ab Mujhe Koi. A very soothing tune (in the raag Shuddha Nat, Hindustani expert on twitter @shenoyn told me) that had its soothingness accentuated by the strings and Ashwin Srinivasan’s flute rendition. In the latter half Rekha digresses from the actual song into a brief Hindustani rendition in the same raag. The switch is so smooth one wouldn’t realise it is different if not acquainted with the original composition. And then came the second ARR cover of the evening, Ranjha Ranjha. Once again Barot did a total makeover of the original, going heavy on percussion (Barot himself handled percussion for this song) and strings. The sinister aspect of the song comes off more starkly with this. And I totally loved Arshad Khan’s israj solo in the second interlude. The only place I had an issue was the vocals, probably due to getting used to listening to the song in the duet form. But there did seem a bit of struggle in Rekha’s rendition, something that did not occur in any other song, either before this song or after. Barot shifted onto vocals with Rekha for the next song, a jazz cover of Madaniya. The only knowledge I had of this song was that it was part of the Karunesh album Punjab. I now know that it is a Punjabi Wedding song. Interesting take on a wedding song this, and a nice listen, though not as impressive as the one Karunesh did. And finally there was another Vishal Bhardwaj-Rekha Bhardwaj-Gulzar product, Laakad from Omkara. The singer pulled it off as beautifully as she did the original, and the charm of the original was done little harm by the arrangement.

Easily the best episode of MTV Unplugged India yet, both in terms of the artist and the execution. Below are the videos from the episode, all except Laakad.

So all of a sudden there has been flurry of shows on MTV and other channels focusing on the Indie scene. The responses have been mixed, but one thing that has definitely been good about all this is the increased public exposure of some instrumentalists who were hitherto non-existent to the public eye despite their talent. Yes, the advent of Rahman in the 90s did turn around the fortunes of some like Sivamani and Keith Peters and Naveen Kumar to name a few, but quite a few still remain in obscurity. And for this reason I have been particularly happy about the latest initiatives regardless of the fate of the shows as such. One such artist who really caught my attention was this flautist Ashwin Srinivasan, who has been exhibiting some fabulous performances on MTV Unplugged India. Turns out that the man has been around for over twelve years now, playing for people like Nitin Sawhney, Imogen Heap, Hariharan et al. The band he heads with drummer Darshan Doshi (also part of the inhouse band for Unplugged and Coke Studio India), keyboardist Santosh Mulekar, guitarist Abhilash Phukan and bassist Manas Chowdhary – Ashwin and the Bombay Project – came out with their debut self-titled album early this year. I had the fortune of hearing it, and thought of jotting down my thoughts of it.

I could not find much of a connect between the opening track and its title Chennai Central. But Ashwin’s neat rendition of the sprightly semiclassical tune makes it a good listen. Saajna Baalma has Ashwin display his singing skills to a light music-ish template. And it works like the general easy listening songs do. It is with BD that the artists get into full-blown fusion mode – Ashwin’s sedate classical rendition giving way to Santosh’s jazz phrases , giving way to more flute from Ashwin. The composer gives an imaginative makeover to the Bade Ghulam Ali Khan thumri Ka Karun Sajni, throwing in a mild whodunit flavour in places. Fix Off Six is the pick of the album, the artists engaged in a frenetic cross-raga sparring with an increased incidence of something that sounded like Hamsanandi or Kamavardhini. The highlight is of course Ashwin’s flute which acquires epic proportions in between. Rangile Balma is the high point of Ashwin Srinivasan the vocalist as he expertly and beautifully executes the classical inflections. The bluesy background melds quite well with the base tune. In the North East-based Bihu tune the composer cleverly adds elements from further east to add to the mystic feel. And even in the folk piece Ashwin infuses some classical phrases that work beautifully. The soundtrack ends with a composition in one of my fave ragas, Jog, Jog Sargam. The song is pretty much what the title says – Ashwin rendering an almost four minute long sargam in Jog. Now here the composer stumbles slightly in his singing, evidently struggling in the soaring portions. Nevertheless the charm of the raga and the lively arrangement work well enough to mitigate those foibles.

A truly impressive debut from Ashwin and the Bombay Project. And I thank MTV Unplugged for leading me to this album. Below are the videos of the band performing the songs at the launch (in order of my preference). Do have a look, you will not be disappointed. It is quite saddening to see his seven songs get a combined viewership of some 2000 while the Shraddha Sharmas of the world get some 4-5 lac views for each upload. The world truly is an unfair place.

Click on song title to watch the song on youtube.

Director Kumar Nanda helps bring back memories of legendary composer Raveendran with Paathi Maayum, a reusal of a tune the composer had done for the original (shelved) version of the movie Chakram which was supposed to be Vidya Balan’s debut (the tune could not be used by Lohithadas in his version of the movie due to copyright issues, the tune later came out in a private album Johnny Sagarika launched, called Ishtamaanu). Coming back to the song, Paathi Maayum has the trademark Raveendran template used for melancholic songs, the strings, the tabla et al, and Yesudas doing the rendition. Nice listen. And then enters composer Rathish Vega, with a pretty avoidable song called Ishtaswapnam sung by Vijay Yesudas. As if to remind us of what his previous composition was, he includes the lead refrain of Neeyam Thanalinu in the first interlude. Bad place to be reminding us of that song though. Only solace (!) for the composer is that the song has a matchingly bad video. Rathish just about betters things with his second and last offering, packaging a marginally more engaging Kannaaram Potthi in an arrangement that once again, despite interesting moments, reminds strongly of Neeyaam Thanalinu.

Middling soundtrack that passes muster because of a song that wasn’t even composed originally for Mullassery Madhavan Kutty Nemam PO. Not that the videos are giving me any better hopes regarding the movie either.

Music Aloud Rating: 5.5/10

Top Reco: Paathi Maayum

So the Indian edition of MTV Unplugged kicked off yesterday. After the way Coke Studio India started off with high hopes and sort of fizzled out as it progressed, failing to keep up to the hype (though I hear they are doing a much better job at their city-wise minicerts), people were majorly uninterested/guarded about Unplugged I guess.  As compared to Coke Studio I saw minimal online buzz about the show, barring the ones by the makers of the show themselves. Anyways, with the name Ranjit Barot at the helm of the affairs, I, for one, was quite looking forward to this one. And after having watched the videos of episode 1 some time back (as usual I missed this show too on TV) I am glad to say my hopes were not misplaced.

Episode 1 featured the man who first invaded our senses with that brilliantly imagined cover of Baba Bulleh Shah’s Bulla Ki Jaana, Rabbi Shergill. And he did start off the show with that very same song, except here it came in Ranjit Barot’s repackaged form. And I loved it! While guest guitarist Sanjeev Thomas provided some interesting improv phrases in the interludes, flautist Ashwin Srinivasan aced the instrumental parley towards the end with his carnatic solos. In fact Ashwin was truly the star of the eve, giving equally impressive performances with his array of flutes in three more songs – one, a lovely interpretation of the traditional Punjabi song called Challa; two, a bluesy take on another popular Punjabi folk piece called Jugni which had Barot himself joining Rabbi on the vocals, and Bilquis, Rabbi’s tribute to four victims of the nation namely Bilquis Bano, Manjunath Shanmugam (an alum of ours, I am proud to say), Satyendra Dubey and Navleen Kumar. The interpretation of the opening lines of Jana Gana Mana on different flutes was truly heart-warming. Apart from these there were three more songs played on the episode. The Unplugged edition of Rabbi’s Tere Bin was totally stolen by the two guys doing the backing vocals (@iPeeKay tells me they featured in the show Music Ka Mahamuqabla) with their classical improvisations – fabulous singing. My fave song of the eve was Heer, the song that was done the proper fusion way – the pulsating percussion, Barot with his konnakol, and Sanjeev with some crazy Arabic-flavored guitaring (though I was surprised to know later that this song was actually on the tragic Heer-Ranjha love story. The performance was anything but melancholic! May be that was the intention, I would not know). And finally there was Ganga, Rabbi’s own Heal The World (Heal India, in this case), that is part of his upcoming album. A very poignant song, perfect for the acoustic interpretation. Nice way to round off the episode.

So like I said at the start, my hopes were not the slightest bit misplaced. If I were to do nitpicking, I would say I didn’t find the chorus (the one that appeared in Bulla) very impressive, and Rabbi wasn’t flawless in his rendition. But otherwise, with his well-chosen in-house ensemble and guest artists Barot looks poised to pull off MTV Unplugged India in style. And with people like Indian Ocean, Rekha Bhardwaj, Shilpa Rao etc. in the list for coming weeks, I don’t see any reason why he won’t.
You can watch the songs in HD below.

The title song provides a sombre, normal start to Beete Pal. There is nothing groundbreaking about the track whose high points are Sanjay Divecha’s captivating guitar phrases and Nandini Srikar’s singing. Hummable tune though. Madhosh starts off promisingly, Nandini pulling off a semiclassical ad lib of Urdu lyrics, penned by her and Shaleen Sharma (ex-drummer with Parikrama, ex-lyricist with Agosh), with trained ease. But then the instruments kick in and sort of Bollywood-ise the song. The use of harmonies all through the song is fabulous, especially in the title refrain, but the arrangement lets down. Raaz Ko Raaz is where the fusion elements really start showing up, a sweeping strings-led arrangement backing a ghazal-based tune. And the effect is quite lovely, Kai Eckhardt on the bass helping a great deal. Nandini’s adeptness at the use of vocal harmonies comes to the fore yet again with Kyon Maane, a haunting tune fairly decently arranged. I especially liked the sarangi segment at the start. Marc Layton-Bennett hasn’t anything creative to do on the drums though. The guest bassist for Sawan Beete Jaaye however, Michael Pope, makes his presence felt big time in the interludes. One of the picks of the album from the fusion perspective, this song too.

Maula Mere has a very interesting arrangement, the kanjira (Vivek Rajagopal)-guitar (Kai Eckhardt) interplay in particular. But the tune fails to match up, and the song fares much lower than how it could have. The preachy Ud Jaa makes for a good listen, but again the template bears a very Bollywood-esque flavour. Duniya follows the same route, the lessons of life and everything, but the arrangement is more engaging in this case. And finally, Naina Baan Padi (the video of which is embedded below) is undoubtedly the best song of the album with its imaginative fusion. Nandini totally aces the singing (mostly in raag Nandkauns, she tells me) and the arrangement in this one, helped amply by Guitar Prasanna, bassist Steve Zerlin and drummer Atma Anur. Prasanna tops things up with a trademark carnatic guitar solo in the second interlude.

An interesting debut album with occasional spikes indicating the potential of Nandini Srikar the composer (though I would have been happier with an entire album on the lines of Naina Baan Padi). As for Nandini Srikar the singer this is just a reinforcement of her vocal prowess.

Music Aloud Rating: 7/10

Top Recos: Naina Baan Padi, Raaz Ko Raaz, Sawan Beet Jaaye

Click on the song titles in the review to watch the original movie version of the songs.

Anoushka Manchanda’s languid rendition of Yeh Raat Yeh Chaandni almost makes you wish there was a video to the song; such is the sensuality her voice oozes. Mikey McCleary does not let any of that oomph go waste, with a lovely arrangement to boot. The composer goes a step ahead in the Monica Dogra-rendered cover of Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh, completely changing the face of the song in its guitar-led arrangement, from the carefree song it was to a sensual-flavored one. The last single-song-entry is from Sagarika Mukherjee, Babuji Dheere Chalna. Fabulous singing by Sagarika, it really saddens me the way that lady has been under-rated in the industry. Orchestration-wise nothing very creative from McCleary in this one, the charm is pretty much owing to the original. Rest of the soundtrack is divided among ex Sa Re Ga Ma Pa finalist Mauli Dave and jazz  Suman Shridhar.

Mauli starts off with Chalte Chalte, a song where McCleary produces some wonderfully imaginative arrangement highlighted by the tabla usage, but the track as such didn’t quite work for me. Jaane Kya Tune Kahi again has pretty normal orchestration by the album’s general standards, but Mauli does a spectacular job of singing it. The singer takes up another Geeta Dutt classic Waqt Ne Kiya next, and delivers it with finesse, helped greatly by McCleary in the background. Mauli bows out with another commendable cover, that of Yeh Sama. The composer leaves the best of the album for his favourite collaborator Suman Shridhar. Of the three songs she sings though, two you would already be familiar with. First is the one that came in this Coke ad, Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho. Brilliantly addictive orchestration and singing! Then there is the mindblowing reinvention of Khoya Khoya Chand from Shaitan. And finally we have Pukarta Chala Hoon Main where we hear a completely new avatar of Suman, which is equally appealing. The orchestration is quite along the lines of the original, guess Hemant Kumar was ahead of times in his arrangement as it was.

An exotic bevy of retro-based cocktails this from Mikey McCleary, The Bartender. MUST.NOT.MISS.

Music Aloud Rating – 8.5/10

Top Recos – Go listen to all!

Click on the song title to watch the song on youtube.

The reggae-ish base of Pranayanila gives it a very heard-before feel(songs like Dont Worry Be Happy invariably come to mind). But that said, wonderful song, the light-heartedness of the composition is quite infectious, and Shaan Rahman does a fabulous job of singing it too. Deepak Dev gets Vijay Yesudas to sing a remix of the song his dad sang in 1984 for Kaanaamarayathu, Oru Madhurakkinaavin. Vijay renders it quite well, and the remix is done in a tastefully retro-ish manner by the composer. It is the visuals you will need to be wary of though. The third and final track of the soundtrack gives off all wrong signals right from its “profound” title, Thillana Rock Your Body. And the song lives up to (or should I say down to?) the expectations from the name, very middling dance music arrangement. Haven’t been able to find out the source of the female voice accompanying Benny Dayal.

Surprisingly short soundtrack, I had expected more songs from the general feel I got about the movie. Two out of three is pass marks anyways. Not bad, Deepak Dev.

Music Aloud Rating: 6.75/10

Top Recos: Pranayanila, Oru Madhurakkinaavin Remix

JT Performing Arts Center is organizing a World Music concert in Kochi tomorrow. The show, called Beyond Kipling – A Melharmonic Exploration (smart nod to the famous line from the author), will have Chitraveena Ravikiran, Brazilian veteran Jovino Santos Neto on the Grand piano, Fazal Qureshi on percussion, Charumathi Raghuraman on violin and Anantha Raman Krishnan on mridangam. The concert begins at 7 pm on Sunday, 28th of August, at the Choice Campus, Thrippunithura. The ensemble has already performed in Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore, and Kochi is supposedly the last stop of the tour. Given that such concerts are not a frequent phenomenon in Kochi, if you are a Kochi resident and a music lover I would advise you to immediately book the tickets. I have already booked mine! The tickets are priced at 250, 500, 750 and 1000. You can book them here. And if you want a general idea about the musicians, just click on the names above.