Songs and musician credits at the end (thanks to Varun Grover for sharing the latter on twitter).
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
The brief for Chaav Laaga appears to have been to try and recreate the magic of Moh Moh Ke Dhaage. While I would still rate the latter higher, there is no denying that Chaav Laaga is a fabulous song – both the music and the words beautifully conveying the simplicity of a village romance. Papon is retained on the vocal front here, and he is joined by the brilliant Ronkini Gupta, and alongside them, guitarist Ankur Mukherjee and flautist Naveen Kumar shine among the instrumentalists. Composer goes further up the classical route for Gupta’s solo track Tu Hi Aham, one that the lyricist calls “a sceptic’s bhajan”. Wonderfully realised song once again on all counts, but the star of the song is the singer, who is in spectacular form carrying out the nuanced rendition. Naveen’s flute once again finds good usage here – particularly loved the second interlude featuring him and the tabla (Sanjeev Sen).
Khatar Patar is light-hearted as indicated by its onomatopoeic title, but intended as a motivational piece at which it succeeds notwithstanding the tone, and Grover’s words are instrumental in this (loved the usages like sui seedhi khadi naache dhaaga). It is Papon delivering this one to Anu Malik’s backdrop that is a rich and charming melange of accordion, plucked strings, violin and world percussion. The alternate title song that is decidedly more motivational musically, revisits some of the lyrical references from the previous song. While Divya Kumar’s singing is spirited as he always is, the song isn’t as effective as I would have liked. Malik shares lyrical duties with Grover for the final track Sab Badhiya Hai, a boisterous folk piece that Sukhwinder Singh leads, Salman Ali chipping in with the occasional soaring alaaps. Not a particularly fresh sounding piece, but the energy levels (largely drawing from the percussion) make it work.
Sui Dhaaga. While I did rate Chaav Laga lower than Moh Moh, as an overall album, this one offers a more consistent experience than DLKH.
Music Aloud Rating: 3.5/5
Top Recos: Chaav Laga, Tu Hi Aham, Khatar Patar
Musician Credits
Recording and Mixing
YRF Studios
Programming and Arrangements
Jim Satya
Mix Engineer (YRF)
Shantanu Hudlikar
Recording Engineers (YRF)
Abhishek Khandelwal
Manasi Tare
Musicians
Ukulele & Acoustic Guitars: Ankur Mukherjee
All plucked instruments: Tapas Roy
Flute: Naveen Kumar
Sitar: Niladri Kumar
Solo Violin: Sandilya Pisapati
Tabla: Sanjeev Sen
Live rhythms & Percussion section: Dipesh Varma
Percussions (Chaav Laaga): Dipesh Varma, Satyajit Jamsandekar, Rahul Rupawate
Percussions (Khatar Patar): Dipesh Varma, Satyajit Jamsandekar, Keyur Barve, Shikhar Naad Qureshi, Rahul Rupawate
String Section: Andrew MacKay
FAME’s Macedonian Symphonic Orchestra
Conductor: Oleg Kontratenko
Sound Engineer: Giorgi Hristovski
Pro Tools Operator: Atanas Babaleski
Stage Managers: Riste Trajkovski, Ilija Grkovski
India Orchestra Coordinator: Andrew T MacKay/Bohemic Junction Ltd
Orchestrator: Michael Hyman
Backing vocals and vocal arranger:
Maywrj Kudalkar
Pragati Joshi
Deepti Rege
Rucha Padhye
Umesh Joshi
Vijay Dhuri
Vivek Naik
Swapnil Godbole
Musician Coordinator: Francis Rodrigues
