Songs and musician credits at the end.
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
I am not sure if it some crediting glitch from the label, but the heavily orchestrated Ghar Mohe Pardesiya has the least number of live instruments credited against it. One live instrument that is mentioned though, and finds good usage in the song, is the sitar played by Niladri Kumar – while the man has played for composer Pritam on multiple occasions in the past, they have all been with the electric variant of the instrument he calls the zitar. Reuniting with the composer after a very long hiatus, Shreya Ghoshal is in top form delivering the song, effortlessly negotiating the classical nuances of the melody. Despite these individual displays of brilliance though, the song in its entirety fails to make as great an impact as expected; the song took me back to Pritam’s own Mere Dholna Sunn (also sung by Ghoshal, incidentally) on more than one occasion. A shorter Radio Edit version of the song has the talented Vaishali Mhade sharing vocalist credits with Shreya Ghoshal, but her use in the song turns out be rather wasteful, just as an additional vocal layer for the sargam that appears in the first interlude. Ghoshal’s second song in the soundtrack is a slightly more interesting piece. Tabaah Ho Gaye is set to a standard classical dance template, but quite effectively – loved the use of the chorus, and the minute-long coda comprised of the frenetic percussion, bols and humming. While none of the songs from Kalank really sound like they belong to a period film set in the 1940s, no song feels as brazenly out of place as First Class does. The folksy, South Indian-inspired dance format is something the composer has used successfully in the past, and here too it engages (the array of musical instruments in the credits amazes me – though a lot of them feel wasted given the kind of song it is), Arijit Singh and Neeti Mohan’s delivery is superb as well. But as mentioned earlier, the fact that this appears in a period setting such as this, rankles – perhaps the movie will provide some justification to this.
Arijit Singh also gets to lead the best song of the album, the title song (the singer also doubles up as the harmonium player here). The serene melody is built up by the composer in stunning fashion, with Amitabh Bhattacharya’s wonderfully written lines. The orchestration, while mellow (an exception in the otherwise boisterous soundscape), sees spectacular use of plucked strings, especially the ones by Tapas Roy. And the song ends on a brilliant high, with nearly a minute and half long segment of the chorus singing many variations of the phrase Main Tera as Arijit does some lovely improvisations atop that. In the duet version of the song, Shilpa Rao joins Singh – a worthy addition to the proceedings. There is also a bonus track version featuring Singh and Rao in which the composer revamps the arrangement. It is nice, but not on par with the original. Aira Gaira is set on filmi qawwali lines, and produces entertaining results. The rich backdrop is populated by all the usual suspects, but also some surprise inclusions like Suresh Yadav’s clarinet. The combination of the melody and the genre evokes memories of SEL’s Murshid Khele Holi from D-Day at times. Splendid singing once again, led by Antara Mitra, Javed Ali and Tushar Joshi. And like the title song, this too closes with a segment of the chorus repeating a phrase, fading away gradually as Javed Ali launches into a slow improvised portion (unrelated: am I the only one who found the use of sundari amidst the predominantly urdu-derived words a bit strange?). A shorter version of the song does away with the outro. The final song, Rajvaadi Odhni, has clear Rajasthani/Kutchi folk influence, which shows in its massive instrumental lineup as well, ranging from algoza to ravanahatha to morchang to khartal to many more. And while the folk elements are all on point, it is the filmi buildup on all that, which doesn’t quite hit the mark. Top singing nevertheless, both from Jonita Gandhi and the folk singers from Team Babu Khan.
Barring the one really brilliant song, Kalank’s soundtrack does not quite live up to the expectations. It sure is grand and opulent matching the movie’s scale (with a splendidly diverse instrument lineup to boot), but that does not really reflect in the quality of the songs that often come across as dependent on the visuals to burnish their appeal.
Music Aloud Rating: 3/5
Top Recos: Kalank, Aira Gaira, Tabaah Ho Gaye
Musician Credits
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Production & Sound Design: DJ Phukan & Sunny M.R
Chief Sound Engineer & Shoot Mix by Ashwin Kulkarni
Music Production Manager: Anurag Sharma
Vocal Production
Tushar Joshi
Arijit Singh & Kaushik Das (Kalank Title Track & First Class)
Recording Engineers:
Aaroh Velankar
Himanshu Shirlekar
Aniruddh Anantha
Harjot Kaur
Music Team
Ashish Pandit
Shloke Lal
Songs Premixed By Sunny M.R & Ashwin Kulkarni
Mix & Mastered by Shadab Rayeen @ New Edge
Assistants to Shadab – Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Song: Ghar More Pardesiya
Singer – Shreya Ghoshal
Music Programmed and Arranged – Prasad Sashte
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Chorus – Harjot, Ana, Nikita, Shreya, Shraddha, Sana, Ashwin, Aaroh, Anurag, Himanshu, Aniruddh, Akashdeep, Kaushik, Shloke, Shubham, Manoj, Animesh, Abhishek, Ritu and Ritvik
Recording Engineer (at Yashraj Studios) – Vijay Dayal
Assistant to Vijay Dayal – Chinmay Mestry
Song: First Class
Singers – Arijit Singh & Neeti Mohan
Music Programmed and Arranged – Prasad Sashte
Additional Programming – Sunny M.R. & Shubham Shirule
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Rhythm Arranger – Nitin Shankar
Bulbul Tarang – Rashid Khan
Qanun – Tamer Pinarbasi
Guitars – Pawan Rasaily
Song: Kalank (Title Track)
Singer – Arijit Singh
Music Programmed and Arranged – Sunny M.R., Arijit Singh & Jim Satya
Additional Programming – Prasad Sashte
Harmonium – Arijit Singh
Tabla – Sukanto Singha & Vinayak Netke
Qanun – Tamer Pinarbasi
Rabab, Mandolin & Various Pluck Instruments – Tapas Roy
Acoustic & Electric Guitar – Aditya Shankar, Roland Fernandes
Spanish Guitar – Pedro Medina Morejon De Giron
Bass – Raj Kumar Dewan, Roland Fernandes & Sunny M.R.
Chorus – Tushar Joshi, Kaushik Das and Sukanto Singha
Additional Recording Engineer – Kaushik Das
Song: Tabaah Ho Gaye
Singer – Shreya Ghoshal
Music Programmer – Aditya Dev
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Rhythm Arranger – Nitin Shankar
Song: Aira Gaira (Extended)
Singers – Antara Mitra, Javed Ali & Tushar Joshi
Music Programmers – Shubham Shirule & Aditya N.
Additional Programming & Arrangment – Sunny M.R. & Arijit Singh
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Rhythm Arranger – Nitin Shankar
Clarinet – Suresh Yadav
Flute – Shubham Shirule
Song: Rajvaadi Odhni
Singer – Jonita Gandhi
Music Programmed and Arranged – Sourav Roy
Additional Programmers – Shubham Shirule & Aditya N.
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Rhythm Arranger – Nitin Shankar
Ravanahatha – Chandan Singh
Sarangi – Dilshad Khan
Swarlin – Abhijit Mazumdar
Flute – Nirmalya Humtoo Dey
Bhapang & Morchang – Mukadar Khan
Khartal – Zaheer Khan
Bass & Electric Guitar – Roland Fernandes
Team Babu Khan (Rajasthani Group)
Singer – Babu Khan & Kailash Khan
Alaap – Idu Khan
Morchang & Bhapang – Sheru Khan
Algoja & Mulri – Sher Khan
Khartal – Salim Khan
Sarangi – Idu Khan
Kamaycha – Misari Khan
Song: Kalank (Duet)
Singers – Arijit Singh & Shilpa Rao
Music Programmed and Arranged – Sunny M.R., Arijit Singh & Jim Satya
Additional Programming – Prasad Sashte
Harmonium – Arijit Singh
Tabla – Sukanto Singha & Vinayak Netke
Qanun – Tamer Pinarbasi
Rabab, Mandolin & Various Pluck Instruments – Tapas Roy
Acoustic & Electric Guitar – Aditya Shankar, Roland Fernandes
Spanish Guitar – Pedro Medina Morejon De Giron
Bass – Raj Kumar Dewan, Roland Fernandes & Sunny M.R.
Chorus – Tushar Joshi, Kaushik Das and Sukanto Singha
Additional Recording Engineer – Kaushik Das
Song: Ghar More Pardesiya (Radio Edit)
Singers – Shreya Ghoshal with Vaishali Mhade
Music Programmed and Arranged – Prasad Sashte
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Sitar – Niladri Kumar
Song: Aira Gaira
Singers – Antara Mitra, Javed Ali & Tushar Joshi
Music Programmers – Shubham Shirule & Aditya N.
Additional Programming & Arrangment – Sunny M.R. & Arijit Singh
Music Arranger – Prakash Peters
Song: Kalank (Bonus Track)
Singers – Arijit Singh & Shilpa Rao
Music Programmed and Arranged – Prasad Sashte
Strings Arranged – Prasad Sashte
Tabla – Vinayak Netke
Live Dubs Conducted By
DJ Phukan, Sunny M.R., Prakash Peters, Nitin Shankar, Tushar Joshi and Shubham Shirule
Presentation Members
Rahul Tiwari (Keyboard)
Zafar Ansari (Keyboard)
Shubham Shirule (Multi Percussions & Programming)
Ishteyak Khan (Tabla & Dholak)
Mustak Khan (Tabla & Dholak)
Babloo Kumar (Tabla & Programming)
Iqbal Azad (Dholak & Dhol)
Nadeem (Dhol)
Sanjeev Sen (Tabla)
