Complete artist credits at the end. You can listen to the album on Saavn.
Ae Ri Sakhi sees Papon give a contemporary pop-based treatment to Amir Khusro’s traditional qawwali, and tops it off with his own soulful rendition of the piece. While the original melody is retained for most part, Papon makes some changes to the second verse. The interludes feature two neat solos – first one has Rinku Rajput doing a bit of jazz on piano while Manasqam Mahanta’s guitar rules the second. The composer’s breezy tune works quite well for the journey theme that Saahil is based on (Vaibhav Modi’s words). While the arrangement is well done in general, the song soars in its elaborate interlude where guitars and horns come together in a carnival-esque gaiety before Inapakurti D Rao takes over with a fine sax solo.
The reggae-flavoured Loving a Dream is the only song that hasn’t really worked for me in the relative scheme of things. There are individual elements still worth appreciating though, Kishore Sodha’s trumpet coda is a keeper. Papon turns lyricist as well (alongside Ankur Tewari) for the album’s most beautiful, Kahin Na Kahin. There is a sweet melody that the singer delivers like a boss, and backing him in an unplugged setting are two of the sweetest sounding instruments – accordion (Sameer Chiplunkar) and mandolin (Tapas Roy). Once again the composer makes sure to feature a brilliant instrumental solo from the two musicians, Tapas in particular doing a beautiful job.
Papon’s The Story Now is as winsome as The Story So Far which was his debut album way back in 2012 (this statement would incidentally hold true in a literal sense as well). And special kudos to the way the man has highlighted some of the instrumentalists in each of the songs.
Top Recos: Kahin Na Kahin, Ae Ri Sakhi, Saahil
Musician Credits
Loving a dream
Composed & Produced by : Papon
Co-produced by : Kalyan Baruah
Vocal : Papon
Lyrics : Vaibhav Modi
Guitar 1 : Jeenti Dutta
Guitar 2 : Kalyan Baruah
Bass Guitar : Manas Chowdhary
Drums : Kurt Peters
Percussions : Sanket Naik
Keyboard : Anowar Hussain
Saxophone : I.D. Rao
Trumpet : Kishore Sodha
Trombone : Blasco Monsorat
Recording engineer : Shantanu Hudlikar, YRF Studios
Mixing engineer : Darren Heelis at Pierce Room Studios – London
Mastered by : Jerome, The Airlab – London
Management : Partha Gogoi and Badsha Talukdar
Saahil
Composed & Produced by : Papon
Co-produced by : Kalyan Baruah
Vocal : Papon
Lyrics : Vaibhav Modi
Guitar 1 : Jeenti Dutta
Guitar 2 : Kalyan Baruah
Bass Guitar : Manas Chowdhary
Drums : Lindsey Dmello
Percussions : Sanket Naik
Keyboard : Anowar Hussain
Saxophone : I.D. Rao
Trumpet : Kishore Sodha
Trombone : Blasco Monsorat
Recording engineer : Shantanu Hudlikar, YRF Studios
Mixing engineer : Darren Heelis at Pierce Room Studios – London
Mastered by : Jerome, The Airlab – London
Management : Partha Gogoi and Badsha Talukdar
Aerii Sakhi Morae
Composition : Traditional/ Papon
Produced & sung by : Papon
Co-produced by : Kalyan Baruah
Lyrics : Amir Khusro
Guitar : Manasqam Mahanta
Piano : Rinku Rajput
Bass Guitar : Manas Chowdhary
Mixing engineer : Darren Heelis at Pierce Room Studios – London
Mastered by : Jerome, The Airlab – London
Management : Partha Gogoi and Badsha Talukdar
Kahin na Kahin
Composed, Produced & Sung by : Papon
Lyrics : Papon & Ankur Tiwari
Guitar : Kalyan Baruah
Bass Guitar : Manas Chowdhary
Accordion : Sameer Chiplunkar
Mandolin : Tapos Roy
Mixing engineer : Darren Heelis at Pierce Room Studios – London
Mastered by : Jerome, The Airlab – London
Management : Partha Gogoi and Badsha Talukdar
