Naren's indie round-up,/ June 2024, Ep 1


BY NARENDRA KUSNUR 

Yohan Marshall & Maalavika Manoj/ Just For Once

Label: Self-released 

Rating: *** 1/2

Singers Yohan Marshall and Maalavika Manoj aka Mali team up on 'Just For Once', a pleasant duet about how everything is possible if one tries.

Mali begins the song with the lines, "Just for once, for me, could you believe that you, you could do anything, just for once, for me, could you believe that you, you really care". Yohan takes over after that, and the tempo increases.

Chaitanya Bhaidkar's guitars and the back-up arrangements blend well with the voices. At three minutes, it's a bit short but creates an impact. 

Pataka Boys/ Bappi Lahiri

Label: Azadi Records

Rating: ***

PAV4N and Sonnyjim, UK-based underground rappers, team up with Indian producer Kartik to form Pataka Boys. Their first collab is called 'Bappi Lahiri' - obviously named after the late music director, who if he had heard it, would wonder what the connection is.

Joining them is British Bengali rapper Mongo, and the song gets quite crowded with too much happening. Luckily, Megan Katti comes up with a cutting edge video, with models Sherlyn and Sarika adding some glam.

The track should appeal to followers of desi hip-hop. Despite the chaos, there's something cool in all this.

Saadhya/ self-imposed sadness

Label: Self-released 

Rating: *** 1/2

She's just 16, but there's a certain maturity in the way Mumbai-based Saadhya Madiman approaches her debut song 'self-imposed sadness'. It talks of a young girl's apprehensions and the desire to come out as a winner.

The song uses a descriptive style, starting from a wish of "never being born" to the impact her attitude has on her mother to lines like, "Change your views, change the way you look at life, and know you're lucky to be alive".

The use of the guitar and steady build-up give the song a pop-rock feel. Most important, the words are inspiring, coming from someone so young.

Joel Jossy/ Main Musafir 

Label: Self-released 

Rating: ***

Though we've heard many travel songs in the Indian indie space, what sets producer Joel Jossy's 'Main Musafir' apart is its blend of Carnatic influences and progressive rock. The opening guitar riff, played by Joel himself, instantly sets the mood.

Aditya Rao's vocals drive the main melody. The lyrics, by Sujeet Anahata Thakur, are routine, using oft-written lines like, "Zindagi toh ek safar hai aur main musafir hoon, hai safar hi mera ghar aur main musafir hoon". Some fabulous guitar parts and innovative rhythms are the highlights.

The song also has an English version with lyrics by Marcello Vieira. The words are far more convincing here. Choose your preferred language.

Ishaan Nigam & Advait Sawant/ Gulchharre 

Label: Self-released 

Rating: ***

Singer-songwriter Ishaan Nigam has rendered some melodious tracks like 'O Chaand', 'Yeh Raaste' and 'Gumshuda Main Hoon'. On his latest 'Gulchharre', he teams up with producer Advait Sawant.

It's a peppy track with some interesting lyrics, beginning with, "Khwabon ki kitabon mein jo, raaton ke sawaalon mein jo, mann ka parinda jab pankh failaaya hai; Roothe lamhaton mein jo, behke jazbaaton mein jo, dil ki chakori jab, bedhadak udd jaaye hai".

However, though the starting has a racy, catchy lilt, the song meanders in the antara, before returning to the the main tune. The singalong can be done at the beginning and end.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gig review/ Deep Purple in Bengaluru

Image
BY NARENDRA KUSNUR  Deep Purple at Bandland  Genre : Rock Details : Bandland rock festival, Embassy International Riding School, Bengaluru, December 17 Organisers : BookMyShow Live  Rating : **** 1/2 We all came out to Bandland, on a Bengaluru riding ground, to shoot videos on a mobile, yeah, capture the classic rock sound. Ian Gillan and the Purples, were at the best place around, space-truckin' on a black night, we danced on dusty ground.. singing, Smoke On The Water, drones in the sky, Smoke On The Water... taan taan taan, taan taan tadaan, taan taan tadaan, taan taan... Three days after British rockers Deep Purple enchanted the crowd at the Bandland rock festival in Bengaluru, the gooseflesh lingers like the whiff of cologne. For many, they have been college heroes, cocktail companions, the kings of melodic power, the epitome of hard rock. Older-generation fans or youngsters, they knew many of these songs by heart. Every word, every instrumental passage, every back-up vocal lin
Read more

Gig review/ Sting @ Lollapalooza

Image
BY NARENDRA KUSNUR   Sting @   Lollapalooza   Genre : Rock/ pop-rock Details : Mahalakshmi Race Course, Mumbai, January 28 Rating : **** You'll forget the sun in its jealous sky, as we walk on fields of gold... The sun had set a long ago, and the walk had been tiring and endless. But everything changed around 8.20 pm when Gordon Sumner aka Sting marched on to the Budweiser stage with a message in a bottle. For the next 85 minutes, every little thing the Englishman in Mumbai did was magic. The green carpet in front of the stage had been converted into fields of gold. The hardcore Sting fans should get those puns, and there were plenty of them who watched his concluding act at the two-day Lollapalooza music festival at the Mahalakshmi Race Course, Mumbai, on Sunday. Some had attended his shows abroad, some were seeing him for the first time, and others had been present at Mumbai's Rang Bhavan in 1980, when he played with his band The Police, or at the Amnesty International festiv
Read more

Gig review/ L. Shankar

Image
BY NARENDRA KUSNUR Artiste : L Shankar & Group Concert : Aditya Birla Group Masters of Music  Genre : Fusion/ Carnatic  Details : June 16, Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, Mumbai  Rating : ***** The sudden excitement was palpable when violinist L. Shankar announced that he and his group would play many Shakti tunes at Sunday's concert in Mumbai. He had already opened the evening with a dazzling rendition of Carnatic composer Muthuswamy Dikshitar's 'Vathapi Ganapathim', and if one thought he would focus on classical fare, that was not to be. Five of the remaining six pieces belonged to the repertoire of the original Shakti line-up, comprising him, guitarist John McLaughlin, tabla genius Zakir Hussain and ghatam maestro Vikku Vinayakram. Together, they had pioneered the Indo-jazz fusion sound in the 1970s, before going different paths over a decade later. Playing those old Shakti classics had a major issue though, at least for fans. They had originally been written for two mel
Read more