Best Indian tracks of the week - 3rd October 2021
The SPOTIFY play list has all the tracks https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0M98Xu6wjheeoHwXkDE7j4?si=46bbe493735644e2
1. Palnilavin Poykayil
Ranjin Raj almost always shines through beaming with a glimmer of hope that good music still exists and continues to reign supreme in the modern day India. Ranjin proves his mettle in this song which tops the charts and we have another brilliant singer in Sithara Krishnakumar delivering the lines with a scintillating voice. The notes played by the acoustic guitar are not run of the mill as you can hear Sumesh Parameshwar deviate and play a nice bit every-time Sithara completes the opening line. Sumesh also plays the bass guitars in the track produces, arranged and composed by Ranjin. Vinayak Sasikumar is the lyricist. The interlude is just a show of class by Kamalakar on the flute and when the verse begins, Sithara draws you closer with her impeccable vibrato, and the bass guitars along with the strings section by Cochin Strings comprising of Francis Xavier, Josekutty, Herald Antony, Francis Sebastian provide apt support. Anthony George does all the additional programming with Balu Thankachan on mixing and Shadab Rayeen on mastering duties. Mani Ratnam and Sai Prakash are the recording engineers. The second interlude is decorated by the strings section.
2. Run
Vasundhara Vee is a vocalist, voice-over artist and educator from Delhi and she has been one of the prime forces in the the Jazz/Soul music space in India for many years now. Here she simply sizzles, soars far into the skies and it almost feels like a masterclass in singing. The track is brilliantly produced, composed and arranged by guitarist/producer Dhruv Ghanekar. The wonderful lyrics are also written by Vasundhara, and we have another composer in Neuman Pinto on the backing vocals here. The bass guitars and beats provide the perfect accompaniment along with harmonies. The track is mixed and mastered by Joseph George and the video is created by Karan Takulia and Jason Vaz. The scat singing and her improvisation towards the end sounds phenomenal towards the end.
3. Ide Swarga
A couple of months ago, the first single of Love Mocktail 2 was simply outstanding with a melody that still fails to leave my heart. Nakhul Abhyankar who is one of AR Rahman's trusted aides and technicians keeps singing in Tamil and Kannada a lot but never discount his composition skills as well. he gets in another master-blaster of a singer in Sanjith Hegde to deliver this fantastic sequel to the first single. Listening to ""Ide Swarga"" is like enjoying the bliss and peace of heaven as the title suggests. Nakhul other than composing this, also takes part in the backing vocals along with Ramya Bhat and he also mixes the track. The initial humming itself tells you that you are in for a treat in this track. Raghavendra Kamath is the lyricist and we have John Paul on the acoustic guitars and Keith Peters on the bass guitars and the guitars play a solid role right through and you can hear them in the second layer behind Sanjith's vocals. The harmonies work well with Keith's bass-lines providing solid comfort. Reuben Machado who also plays the flute, enhances the value of this sing with his Saxophone solo in the first interlude and all this sounds like a beautiful Michael Bolton track. Sanjith's singing is beyond compare in the verses with the saxophone playing mildly in the background. The track is mastered by Suresh Perumal
4. Kanmaniye
This is the 3rd song in 2 weeks for Vijay Prakash and Kannada music is certainly riding on a high. As expected Vijay sings this one with great poise singing the words written by Shree Talageri. Anand Rajavikram is the composer of this fabulous melody and he also does this inspiring arrangement with strings section woodwinds, guitars and flute. The strings are orchestrated by Srikanth Krishna and the strings Quintet by Francis and team. The beautiful woodwinds will impress you beyond doubt in the verse following up every line that Vijay sings and they are played by Bharath Aatreyas while Abhishek Bose plays the guitars. I personally get a sense that the track has some influence of the Cranatic Raaga Kaapi. Anand does the backing vocal as well, The track is recorded by Midhun Manoj. and Ashwin. The verse is beautiful with enchanting notes and strings all the way almost feeling like a Ilaiyaraja masterpiece. Let us not forget the guitars especially the bass providing some great accompaniment and oomph to the track.
5. Aaj Phir Tera
This wonderful band focussing on Hind-Urdu projects was formed in 2017 by Lucknow born Vaibhav Sharma, the band currently comprises bassist Anish Nair, guitarist Keshav Parthsarathy who also plays for Anand Bhaskar Collective, drummer Saurav Dutta and keyboardist Nishant Nair . I loved their earlier track called ""Ae Dil"" and it was featured and reviewed on this blog a while ago. Vaibhav has also written the lyrics and plays the Kazoo which is gaining awesome popularity as an instrument. The track has a very 80s pop feeling, and isn't that enough to fall in love with a number. Vaibhav's singing is fabulous supported in the backing vocals by Keshav, Anish and Nishant. The track is mastered by Vivek Thomas and all additional programming is by Ariel Samson. The drums are wonderful giving the tempo to the song that is delightfully 80s. We have some vocal improvisation by Vaibhav and then he plays the Kazoo as well after that giving the song great flavors just like the chocolate ganache shown in the video.
6. Roshe
Kashmiri songs have a flavor that take us to the beautiful land itself just by listening to the splendid music and words though I cant follow a word of what is being said. I have featured ad reviewed many artists and their originals and renditions from Kashmir and this joins that list. Roshè is an age old Kashmiri Folk song originally by celebrated poet Habba Khatoon. This version is sung by sisters Meyhaa Kilam & Kaira Kilam and we have the rockstar Amit Kilam from Indian Ocean providing some backing vocals as well as doing the mixing, mastering and all instrumentation for the track. The Piano introduces us to the folky melody and the sisters then perform a wonderful act that can be enjoyed in total peace and solitude. The bass guitars and the beats are essential in keeping us engaged more than the just the singing. Amit's backing vocals are emotive and display a range of emotions. If I am not wrong there is some Kafi thaat influence that I hear when the sisters sing. I love how the song moved into a lower scale, while generally we see songs in the AR Rahman era moving up a scale towards the end.
7. Adiga Adiga
S Thaman and Telugu music continue to scale higher peaks with consistent good music week in and week out. This is another excellent track sung by Sp Charan, after I don't know how long, and female lead vocalist ML Shruti. We have Kalyana Chakravarthy penning the lyrics. Shruti is splendid singing her lines showing adequate ease in the higher scales and she is supported by a massive array of fabulous singers in the chorus namely Sahithi Chaganthi, Harini Ivaturi, Sruthi Ranjani, Harika Narayan, Satya Yamini and Aditi Bhavaraju. Interestingly I have featured all of these singers as solo performers in my blog before. The violin and strings have become a regular tool for Thaman's musical scores and here the Chennai Strings are involved with arrangements by Prabhakar and conducted by Ravi Rahav. The song is recorded by Osho V and Biju Nair while Shada Rayeen mixes and masters it assisted by Pukraj. The vocal supervision is handled by Sri Krishna and Manikandan is the musicians co-ordinator. The production is of high quality and the second interlude is loaded with all the goodness of an Ilaiyaraja composition.
8. Yeh andhkaar
The song is riveting and keeps you hooked thanks to the singing and composition by Deepa Nair Rasiya. She is an award-winning composer/vocalist; a world musician in Indian classical music, semi-classic music, rock fusion, and Sufi music. Â In ""Chants of India"" she has worked with Beatles' George Harrison and Pt. Ravi Shankar. The track is produced and arranged by Nimrita Kaur and the quality is retained by her brilliance. The 'andhkaar' is felt through the vocals and instrumentation as there is a mystery and darkness that they propagate. The Sitar in the first interlude is magically played by Roopa Panesar. Adam Whitaker as done the mixing and Donal Whelan the mastering. Meera Rasiya appears in the video and it is sho by Kate Griffin.
9. Twin size bed
Kruttika Sequeira is a singer-songwriter, keyboardist and composer from Mumbai, India and she has worked majorly in R&B/Soul, Jazz , Blues and Instrumentals . A lot of her work is influenced by Alicia Keys, Carole King, Bonnie Raitt, Adele and Sia. She even has an associate degree in Vocal Performance from Musicians Institute in Hollywood and she specializes in Songwriting, composition, arranging for songs and vocals as well as keyboard accompaniments. Kruttika recently released her EP called ""Snow"" with 5 tracks and I loved ""Twin Size Bed"" the most. She has written, composed, arranged the strings and performed this number. Vinayak Pol is awesome on the drums and we can here the constant Pianos along with the strings section. Sheldon D'silva plays the bass guitars and Anthony McCarthy is on the acoustic guitars. Akshat Shinde is the recording engineer along with Gino Banks from Mumbai and Navneet Rao and Kruttika record from LA. The electric guitar solo and then the backgrounds in the Keys sound terrific past the mid way mark. Kruttika is flamboyant in her vocals and she also mixes the track with Nate Wood doing the mastering. There is also something about this track , mabe teh singing, or the arrangements but it could have been a perfect track for ""No time to die"" as a Bond movie OST.
10. Come Away
This another splendid track making into the top 10 for the week with Vishal J Singh producing an performing along with two more vocalists in Urmila Sivadas and Surya Prakash Medhi. The lyrics are written by Tanushree Saha and all the lyric animations are by Nilotpal with artwork and animation by Pranjeevan Adhikary. It starts off slow with just the vocals and Keys giving off a Blues vibe , and Urmila takes over there and she sings with almost an English Jazz style but it does sound pretty damn good. The combined voices add greater glitter to the track and when the lines say ""Come away"" the genre almost shifts from Blues to Pop/Rock enhanced by the electric guitar solo. The outro portion with all the vocalists, the drums, and guitar is breath taking in effect.
11. Love to you
RIKA is Chandrika Darbari and this British Indian singer has already caught the world by storm, and now she is collaborating with an acclaimed Indian musician Ankit Tiwari who has scored many jingles and songs and albums in the Hindi music space. Another stalwart in Arko Pravo Mukherjee has worked with RIKA in writing the song. This has a modern pop/EDM texture to it but is really catchy all the way. DJ Phukan has produced this number and Ankit and Phukan have programmed the track. The Guitars are played by RIKA while Drop Vocals are that of Ayush. The track is Mixed and Mastered by Eric Pillai
12. Aeri Sakhi
The track is a rendition by the classical singer and vocal coach Ronkini Gupta and the lyrics are by Amir Khsuro the legend. The track is produced and arranged by Sriram Sampath while it is recorded, mixed and mastered by Saikat Sarkar. The production is very modern with some lo-fi effects but the highlight other than Ronkini's vocals is the Mridangam used. The flute solo does the needful in the interlude and then its back to her singing that captures the beauty of this track set in Raag Desh.
13. Darmiyaan
Rajiv Sundaresan is one work-horse who keeps composing and performing at incredible frequency. This is a track I just loved and it is under the label of Merchant Records. This one too is composed & sung by Rajiv Sundaresan with some savvy strings in the background straight away. The Keys also provide some very effective accompaniment , especially the solo for a brief moment before we get some backing vocals from Rishikesh Kamerkar. The beautiful words are written by Saaveri Verma. The track is produced, mixed and mastered by Tapas Relia. Rajiv brings his A-game in this track as a vocalist with some beautiful singing especially in the higher scales.
14. When Im alone
Ananya Birla doesn't need any introduction, as she not only is Kumaramangalam Birla's daughter , she also is a global music superstar having worked with Sean Kingston and AR Rahman etc. She studied in Univ of Oxford as well, but all that aside, she really does a fabulous job in this track which is produced by Chris ""TEK'"" O'Ryan. Tejas Menon another supreme talent who has been featured on this website before writes the lyrics along with Ananya and Jehangir Jehangir . This enjoyable number is Composed by Tejas, Jehangir Jehangir and Ananya while it is Produced by Jehangir Jehangir, Stuart DaCosta and Tejas. It is one to stand up against the rest of the global musical productions thanks to some excellent singing and arrangements. if you have listened to Tejas before you know that there are figments and fragments of his score written all over this track. The keys The vocals are recorded by Aria Nanji while it is mixed by Chris ""TEK"" O'Ryan and mastered by Joe Bozzi.
15. Shukrana
I loved the first single by Siddhant Mishra from his album ""Ehsaas"", and I did review the first single on my blog a few weeks ago. “Shukrana�, the second single is a song of gratitude. The track is written by Nikhil Chinchankar and composed/produced by Siddhant Mishra. He brings in one of the most accomplished and endearing vocalists of our time in Abhay Jodhpurkar. Jobin David's guitars and the wonderful ethnic strokes by Dwaipayan Ghosh. These play a wonderful accompanying role along with Abhay's vocals. Siddhant himself plays the bass guitars and after a delightful acoustic guitar led interlude, the verse gets equally interesting and melodious. The recording engineers are Pranjal Borah, Rupjit Das and Nitin Dubey mixes the track with Pablo Schuller mastering it. Engineer.
Author
I write album and song reviews of Tamil music every month for Behindwoods. You can also call me a sports nut, especially football, and I used to write articles on sportskeeda.com. I am a die-hard Argentina football fan and have travelled to South Africa and Russia to witness the FIFA world cup games. It is not just music, I love movies as well and you will find me quoting dialogues and moments from a lot of movies, as I believe every movie teaches me something new about life itself.