Sorry about missing this last week. Hence this time there are three videos.
First one is from the second episode of Coke Studio at MTV, headed by Sachin Jigar. After a rather ho hum song from Amit Trivedi in episode 1, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The episode turned out to be quite good, there were three songs all of which were well done, and no music video which was a bad idea to begin with. This one happens to be my favourite from among the three. Has a slight Amit Trivedi feel to it in the general use of instruments. Not to mention the fact that Tochi Raina is leading the vocals. The Rajasthani folk based fusion has been tried on the show in the past too with good success, works very well here too. Bhungar Khan Manganiar‘s group takes care of the Rajasthani section this time, while on the other side Tochi Raina has lyricist Priya Saraiya and Ronkini Gupta for support with some neat chorus bits. Shirish Malhotra and Tapas Roy rule the background with their sax and mandolin respectively. Do check out the other two songs from the episode as well, they are worth it.
Second video comes from Kappa TV’s Music Mojo. Yeah I did share one from the show last time too, but the show does produce a lot of quality music. And Masala Coffee is one of the quality bands that have appeared on the show. They have only done covers of songs so far, but they have done a fabulous job at each of those covers. They have covered film music, but they have been extra good with folk songs. Do check out their Kaanthaa and Vadakkan Paattu at some point. This song though is a carnatic one, 17th century composer Narayana Theertha‘s neelambari raga based Mamava Madhava Deva. A raga that lends itself very well to such minimal covers it would seem. I have another beautiful neelambari cover that I will share at another point. The song’s mainstay, as has been the case with the band’s songs in general, is the immensely talented singer Sooraj Santhosh. Nice use of guitars too.
The best thing about the song Mutant Macha is the fact that more people will now know about Chennai band Skrat, thanks to names like Farhan Akhtar, Vishal Dadlani and Star Movies associated with the song. The singing could have been better, but trippy song otherwise. On an aside, Skrat had featured on volume 2 of Music Aloud’s OKListen mixtape series. 🙂
