Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy – Music Review (Telugu Soundtrack)

Songs and musician credits at the end.

The title song comes with the level of grandeur that is expected of such paeans to the larger-than-life protagonist. The orchestration features a conventional domination of percussion and horns (the latter isn’t live, I presume, by the absence of credits); and the song gains a lot of its appeal from the vocals – especially Sunidhi Chauhan leading the proceedings, with a fine chorus (Sargam Choir) backing her. The best bit of the song happens towards its close, as it moves into a mellower passage where Shreya Ghoshal joins Sunidhi, and the twosome finish off that portion with a lovely harmonic bit where Shreya switches to the higher octave and Sunidhi goes bass. Given the kind of movie that Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy is, it isn’t surprising to hear the sprawling soundscape across all of its songs. The patriotic song in the album – Swaasalona Desame – also follows a formulaic route in terms of arrangement (barring the few nice touches like the use of Naveen Kumar’s flute in the interlude), but has a nice, soothing melody going for it, and Haricharan’s soulful rendition.

It is in the rest of the soundtrack that composer Amit Trivedi starts getting more creative. Jaago Narasimhaa Jaagore starts with a little solo on Navneeth Sundar’s famous iPad synth (sounds almost like a continuum fingerboard here) before taking on a more folksy disposition (loved the use of Dilshad Khan’s sarangi, especially how it plays out almost like a ravanahatha at the start). Krishna Kishor, Tapas Naresh, Ramkumar & Chinna Durai’s live percussion once again dominates the backdrop, but there is a great variety of percussive instruments in use here, at varying tempos at different points, making for a great listen. And leading the vocal department are three reliable singers – Shankar Mahadevan (interestingly his first song with the composer!), Haricharan and Anurag Kulkarni. Amit delivers his best of the soundtrack in the romantic melody Antam Ankitam, sung by Shashaa Tirupati and Vijay Prakash. Once again, the composer taps on a rich folk base for both the melody and the orchestration; the latter especially touching a beautiful high in the interlude with an array of string instruments – santoor (Seenu), sitar (Kishore), veena (Punya Srinivas) interspersed with Vishnu Vijay’s flute solos. And like Jaago, this one too builds up to a crescendo (one that accentuates the classical flavour the song carries) as it ends. Sealing the deal is the brilliant rendition by Shashaa and Vijay, yet again backed very well by the chorus.

Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy. Amit Trivedi’s Telugu debut (I am going to ignore the two released songs of the Queen remake for now) is pretty much along the lines of Baahubali – majestic in an expected way and partly comes across as dependent on the elaborate visuals to bolster its appeal. To the composer’s credit, he seems to have adapted well to the flavour of the industry – these songs did not feel particularly Bollywood-y, or indeed (and this is more important for me) like any of his older songs. Also good to see that he has worked with a lot of musicians from the South whom I adore.

Music Aloud Rating: 3/5

Top Recos: Antam Ankitam, Jaago Narasimhaa, O Sye Raa

Musician Credits

1) Jaago Narasimhaa Jaagore

Composed & Produced by Amit Trivedi
Lyrics – Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry
Singers – Shankar Mahadevan, Haricharan, Anurag Kulkarni
Backing Singers – Rajiv Sundaresan, Arun Kamath, Suhas Sawant, Rishikesh Kamerkar, Aditi
Prabhudesai, Madhura Paranjape, Pragati Joshi & Rucha Padhye

Crew:
Arranged & Programmed by Amit Trivedi, Gourab Dutta, Raja Rasaily & Kalyan Chakravarthy
Sound Engineer, A T Studios – Urmila Sutar
Assisted by Firoz Shaikh
Mixed & Mastered by Shadab Rayeen, New Edge – Mumbai
Assisted by Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Executive Producer, A T Studios – Krutee Trivedi
Supervising Producer, A T Studios – Aashish Narula
Live Musicians:
Sarangi – Dilshad Khan
Additional Music Production – Krishna Kishor
Flute & Woodwinds – Vishnu Vijay
Oud and Strokes – Seenu
iPad Synth – Navneeth Sundar
Rhythm Arranged by Krishna Kishor
Percussion Performed by Krishna Kishor, Tapas Naresh, Ramkumar & Chinna Durai
Recorded by Mani Ratnam at Tapas Studios and ENZY Studios

2) Andam Ankitam

Composed & Produced by Amit Trivedi
Lyrics – Anantha Sriram
Singers – Vijayprakash, Shashaa Tirupati
Backing Singers – Rajiv Sundaresan, Umesh Joshi, Deepti Rege & Pragati Joshi

Crew:
Arranged & Programmed by Amit Trivedi, Gourab Dutta, Raja Rasaily & Kalyan Chakravarthy
Sound Engineer, A T Studios – Urmila Sutar
Assisted by Firoz Shaikh
Mixed & Mastered by Shadab Rayeen, New Edge – Mumbai
Assisted by Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Executive Producer, A T Studios – Krutee Trivedi
Manager, A T Studios – Aditya Hanchinal

Live Musicians:
Additional Music Production – Krishna Kishor
Santoor and Strokes – Seenu
Sitar – Kishore
Flute – Vishnu Vijay
Veena – Punya Srinivas
Rhythm Produced & Arranged – Krishna Kishor
Percussion Performed – Krishna Kishor, Tapas, Ramkumar
Mridangam – Krishna Kishor
Recorded by Mani Ratnam at Tapas Studio & AM Studios

3) O…Syeraa

Composed & Produced by Amit Trivedi
Lyrics – Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry
Singers – Sunidhi Chauhan, Shreya Ghoshal
Backing Singers – Rajiv Sundaresan, Arun Kamath, Suhas Sawant, Rishikesh Kamerkar, Deepti
Rege, Pragati Joshi, Arohi Mhatre & Aditi Prabhudesai

Crew:
Arranged & Programmed by Amit Trivedi, Gourab Dutta, Raja Rasaily & Kalyan Chakravarthy
Sound Engineer, A T Studios – Urmila Sutar
Assisted by Firoz Shaikh
Mixed & Mastered by Shadab Rayeen, New Edge – Mumbai
Assisted by Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Executive Producer, A T Studios – Krutee Trivedi
Supervising Producer, A T Studios – Aashish Narula

Live Musicians:
Additional Music Production – Krishna Kishor
Saz/Sarod and Strokes – Seenu
Chorus – Sargam Choir
Live Rhythm Arranged by Krishna Kishor
Percussion Performed by Krishna Kishor, David Joseph & Chinna Durai
Recorded by Mani Ratnam at Tapas Studios

4) Swaasalona Desame

Composed & Produced by Amit Trivedi
Lyrics – Chandrabose
Singers – Haricharan
Backing Singers – Rajiv Sundaresan, Arun Kamath & Suhas Sawant

Crew:
Arranged & Programmed by Raja Rasaily
Sound Engineer, A T Studios – Urmila Sutar
Assisted by Firoz Shaikh
Mixed & Mastered by Shadab Rayeen, New Edge – Mumbai
Assisted by Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Executive Producer, A T Studios – Krutee Trivedi
Manager, A T Studios – Aditya Hanchinal

Live Musicians:
Flute & Woodwinds – Naveen Kumar
Additional Music Production – Krishna Kishor
Electric/Acoustic Guitar and Strokes – Keba Jeremiah
Rhythm Programmed and Live Percussions – Krishna Kishor and K V Prasad

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