Sui Dhaaga – Music Review (Bollywood Soundtrack)

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

 

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