Fresh Single Review - 29 May, 2022

1.    For who I am

I reached out to Arunaja a few days ago, saying how overwhelmed I was listening to this song. I am going to repeat what I told her, so here goes. I was walking back home coming down the metro station stairs, wearing my headphones, going through a massive list of songs pending for listening and reviewing. It was all happening steeped in monotony, and suddenly The Piano and Arunaja’s vocal struck me. I literally lost my balance as my mind was not aware of the events and people around me, but deeply engrossed in the music. I felt like I was listening to some of the greatest musicians the world has known in the pop genre, like a Madonna, Mariah Carey, Vanessa Carlton, Celine Dion, and so many names. Arunaja soars to a level I haven’t heard in a very long time and she definitely occupies the top tier of Indian vocalists with this number. The music drew me in and I was shaking my head, thanking the heavens for giving me the passion to listen to so much of music, just so that I stumble upon a song like this. Arunaja writes, composes and performs this with Keshav Dhar’s emphatic production. This is proof that a voice to kill and a Piano to plunder you can do more magic than David Copperfield. The way she sings and introduces such minute vibrato et the end of each line is worth paying attention to. The title line as she sings “For who I am, for who I am not” you will surrender to the song’s capacity to allure and mesmerize you. A big applause to Sonu Milton who slays the song as he plays the Keys, as it is nothing shot of phenomenal. If you actually pay attention, or even without that Sonu’s Piano has a aggrandizing effect on you and just as much as Arunaja serenades with her vocals, Sonu turns out to be the Pied Piper. The production value is heightened by Keshav’s hand in this along with his expertise in mixing and mastering for the track. Designer Aki does the artwork, with Azhar handles the photography. Arunaja plays it mild and vulnerable, in the lower scales and she performs with full bravado as she sings “would you stay here for a while, is there something holding you back”.  The unison of the vocals, Piano, drums and guitars towards end is an experience you must feel yourself, and watch out for the outro where Arunaja goes full blast on her vocals, and this is where I feel privileged and determined to keep going on as a music reviewer.

2.     Nadichaa Nadichaa

Just last month Osho Venkat impressed with a fantastic dance song in Tamil, and that was featured by me. In an age where dance music is simply perceived as a collecti9n of remixes and heavy percussion, Osho did a wonderful job with his song “Baby nee sugar”. He ropes in two amazing singers in Chinmayi Sripada and Amala Chebolu. The electric Veena played by Haritha shows some influence of Abheri Raagam. Srikrishna is the male vocalist for the song and he has this tonality which sounds like SPB Charan, but it all starts with Chinmayi’s voice.  Osho’s programming and Synth bass is spaced right through. Sandy’s solo violin comes in at the interludes and joined by the Veena making it one stunning epoch in the song. Amala brings her A game as well as the table, and the moment in the stanza when thee singers sing in union is breathtaking. The instrumentl arrangements are exemplary with Shuba on acoustic guitar, Jobin on Clean guitar, and Tanish Krishna on Bouzouki. The talam is performed by Arun Subramani, with Abhiikya, Sruthi Shivakumar & Dharshini on chorus. Pukhraj Sonkar has mixed and mastered the track.

3.     2 Chord

This 2 –man act called Itra hails from Bengaluru and they have been producing some good singles in Hindi. The duo of Vinod Patney and Naren Thota met back in 2015 and they have been performing quite well, although this is the first time I’m hearing their work. It didn’t take me more than 10 seconds to love the track as it had all the right elements straight off the bat. Vinod plays the guitars, and he has composed, written and performed the lead vocals while his partner Naren does the production, arrangements and sound design. The guitars sound way too cool, and matching that with Vinod’s oomph on the vocals creates a super setting for a drive. The vocal harmonies in the background and the drums and electric guitar sounds are just too fabulous to ignore or be indifferent to. The drums have a certain way about them and I love the beats where they hasten and increase the count without altering the tempo. The song totally feels like something out of the “Rock On” album by Shankar Ehsaan Loy, and this is meant to be a ravishing compliment on the Itra. Decaville is the mixing engineer and Andres Mayo does the mastering. The video animation is thanks to Priyanka Thampi, Kaushik Mandal and Rahul Tampi

4.     Bechari

You may call her the Bpraak of the female world, or why? Just know her name, and you will probably not get such an impactful voice like hers even if you look hard. She is Afsana Khan. She sings like she has not 1 but two pairs of lungs and listen to her in full flow here at unimaginably high scales. The melody is composed by Nirmaan and lyrics too and Goldboypro does the production and arrangements. Apoorv Ghai and Mansi Singh conceptualize and execute the project. The string instrumentals maybe along with the percussion and the humming add to the beauty in the interludes. This is one song that will impact you with the depth and sadness as it plays along.

5.     Colors I see

A year or so ago I have featured her and then after a brief hiatus she’s back, Pritha Ghosh.  The artist has written, composed, produced and performed this stunner, with Karthik Nair also producing, mixing mastering and recording. She does some unbelievable vocal jugglery in certain instances but the way her voice captivates you and doesn’t let you lose attention for even a second is what mystifies me, listen to her sing “If only you’d understand”. The guitars have a strong presence and more than just fill the gaps when there is a vocal pause. The art work is by Afifa Eram.

6.     Snow

The EP called “Gramophone Goodbyes” has some good music, but ‘Snow’ thrilled me the most. Arka Saha has written, composed and sung this while Varun Murali produces this at his studios ‘the red music box’.  Tulip handles the photography and Tarun Mishra does the cover art. I write this on a Wednesday dated 1^st June, when two artists on either end of the spectrum of achievements died, one being KK the singer and another being this young Indian Frank Sinatra called Sheil Sagar of just 22 years. Arka Saha’s singing and the Organ make my heart swell in sadness. The guitars and string section in the background add such layers of depth maybe to signify life just like music is beyond the simple truths that we can comprehend. There is a nice vocal arrangement as well where the backing vocal follows the lead with a very mild marginal lag. Arka’s singing is emotionally apt singing “When the winter comes, you’ll understand”. The bridge segment is even more powerful “I know, you know my pain, but your pain is too much” with the strings intensifying. Like he says, it is ludicrous!

7. Khamakha

Give a album/song to this guy and he will compose a score, that absolutely befits the theme and message. This is a story of a cricketer who arrived very late in to the scene after many years of struggle and hard-work and obviously there had to be an inspiring anthem of sorts, and Anurag Saikia delivers. The movie showing the rise of Pravin Tambe is well appreciated and I couldn’t think of anyone else who was ideal to score for a movie of this appeal. His trusted man Vivek Hariharan is the lead vocalist and he leaves no stone unturned singing this with immaculate passion. Shakeel Azmi is the lyricist, and Ishan Das along with Anurag produce the songs in the album. Even as the singing happens, there is so much instrumental backup happening and Japjisingh Valecha has done the additional production and orchestration. The extremely popular and efficient Cochin Strings handle the strings section, and the team comprises of Francis Xavier, Herald Josekutty and Francis Sebastián. The interlude has the woodwinds playing and we have two phenomnela instrumentalists on duty in Tejas Vinchurkar and ID Rao. Vivek shows his skill by being so delicate in segments and raising the decibels when he has to and all that happens seamlessly without a struggle. A song like this sounding like an anthem can never be a success without the backing vocalists and that is why Gauranga Shekhar, Arabinda Neog, Rakesh Deol and Sudhanshu Shome deserve credit. The guitars are played by Ishan Das and with mixing by Ninad Lad, mastering is done by Gethin John

8.     Now she Knows

Aarifah Rebello is someone I’m hearing for the first time, and rightly so because this is her debut single. The fact that many young indie musicians have now started delivering superlative debuts is really heartening to see. This young heap of talent starts things off quite slow with the gentle guitars and it is almost a one –woman show with Aarifah writing, composing, singing producing and playing the acoustic guitars. Bharath Kashyap accompanies her on guitars with the solid bassline support by Yohan Coutinho. The song felt like a Avril Lavigne number to me, and it has some excellently arranged vocal harmonies. Aarifah then improvises as the track moves forward, and this is the segment where she puts her vocals on full display. The track is recorded by Nitin Muralikrishna with mixing by Jason D’Souza and mastering by Shawn Hatfeild. In the video, it is Aarifah herself with Debasis on camera, editing and Colour, and Abhijeet Kokitkar on additional edit.

9.     Rehnuma

Just when you think that AR Rahman is way past his prime, and write him down, he comes back with a bang. His most favorite and effective scores have come in the Sufi style and this one too is mesmerizing that way. I am reminded of that fabulous Pritam song from ‘Kalank’ called “Ghar more pardesiya”. This is the second song from the album to be featured after “Jalwanuma”, and it has some sparkling young talent in the form of Swagat Rathod and Faiz Mustafa in vocals. Mehboob pens the lyrics and Hiral Viradia does the music supervision. The Oud and Mandolin are delicately played by Tapas Roy while the emphatic rhythms deserve a special mention. Sathyajit Jamsandekar & Mohammed Shadab play the Dholak and as the rhythms are arranged by Parag Chhabra, the conducting is by Omkar Salunkhe. There is a trace of Kailash Kher especially in the title lines. The song is one that reminds us of some of AR Rahman’s popular and great works, especially with his own pristine vocals. The strings can be heard in the background and that is played by the Sunshine Orchestra in Chennai. The stanza also gives a Qawwali flavor and credit goes to Krishna Chetan for mixing and Suresh Permal for the mastering duties. There are many Raagas intertwined and I could sense some Bihag and Darbari.  There is a massive parade of sound engineers namely Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran, Aravind Crescendo, Shubham Bhat, Suryansh Jain, Nitish Kumar, Hriday Gattani, Sivakumar S, Pradep Menon, Aravind MS, Sathya, Krishnan Subramanian, Vijay Dayal & Chinmay Mestry

10.     Kahani

It feels like known territory now as we have Pritam now after AR Rahman in the list of best music, and I too have been critical saying that Pritam has definitely gone past his best days, but his music for “Laal Singh Chaddha” seems to be hitting the right notes. This song Kahani is a walk down the memory lane where we experience what we used to with a Pritam melody a few years ago. With Pritam’s music and Mohan Kannan’s scintillating voice we have a song that straightaway takes us to the visuals of “Forrest Gump” and this is what the work of music director should achieve.  The whole score wouldn’t amount to any greatness without Jim Satya, Stefan Mathew, DJ Phukan and Sunny MR who have done the production and arrangements.  The bass guitars by Roland Fernandes and Pranab Das can be heard and then the Accordion in the interlude played by Satyajit Prabhu. The grand orchestral music is from the Budapest Film Orchestra and a lot of the superior sound quality is thanks to the sound design by DJ Phukan, Sunny and Ashwin Kulkarni. The beautiful ethnic stringed instruments which we hear so much of during the stanza are all played by Tapas Roy and Mohan Kannan glorifies the track with his vocals and obviously Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics have an effect as well. Shadab Rayeen does the mix and master with Anup Kumar and Pukhraj Sonkar assisting. The sound engineers involved are Ashwin Kulkarni, Aniruddh Anantha, Pranav Gupta and Harjot Kaur and the Vocal Conductors are Akashdeep Sengupta, Dev Arijit & Aniruddh Anantha

11.     That Kinda Love

He works in close quarters with one of India’s greatest musicians i.e. AR Rahman, but it hasn’t taken this youngster long to start shining on his own and not appear under the former’s large shadow. Hriday Gattani is a multiple offender, if being on my list of India’s best music is considered an offense. I recommend music listeners to go check out his EP “Jukebox of History” and I liked 3 of the 5 tracks with my favorites being ‘That kinda Love’ and ‘Broken wings’. Hriday produces, writes, composes and sings while Ayan De does the mixing the mastering. In ‘That kinda love’ I felt a bit of Phil Collins’ “Take me home”, and Hriday does an excellent job vocally with really fast lines and tongue twisting words in between. The humming bits, the vocal harmonies all add beautifully to the quality of the track.  The best segment is the sound of the Keyboards and synths, which keeps repeating right through. The keys and rhythm programming is excellently done creating a wonderful tone for a love song. ‘Broken Wings’ belongs to another genre where the mood is pensive and Hriday achieves that emotional transmission to the listeners by singing with a tone that carries pathos. The use of programmed strings in the song and that cry/humming emotes all the despair. The solo violin acts as a brief interlude and the heavy synths and keyboard programming works well in this track too along with the humming in falsetto by Hriday. In ‘Broken wings’ there is Karthik Ramaswamy on guitars and on the other track called ‘Parasite’ there is Kush Upadhyay on electric guitar and Jaykishan Unnithan on Keys.

12.     Saanjh

Utsavi Jha has consistently impressed and I have featured her twice before but both were English tracks viz. “Picnic” and “Word Limit”. This is her Hindi single and language hardly changes anything especially when someone can sing and compose a melody as good as this.  Manav and Mohit Deen from Twin Strings are fabulous musicians who have created chart-toppers in this website’s weekly rankings and their contribution is immense in this track. Manav has produced the track with mixing and mastering by Mohit. I am not sure but I could sense some Raag Bihag here and there. We hear electric guitars, acoustic guitars along with Keys which is played by Adinath Patkar. The opening line straight away feel similar to that antara of “Sach keh raha hai” sung by the recently departed KK and composed by Harris Jayaraj in ‘Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein’. Utsavi deserves credit for sounding so saccharine and carrying this track and delivering it so differently from her earlier singles. AT some segments I also felt like there was an influence of Raag Bilaval. The production is excellent as the song from being one of classical tone shifts in a rock genre in the interludes laced with electric guitars. The stanza is really short but all that is compensated by some very energetic singing and instrumentals. Utsavi Jha really waves a beautiful tune with some relevant writing and apt vocals. Sagar Makwana handles the photography and Jesal Bhatt takes care of the graphics.

13.     Never fold

Let me first say that this song wasn’t included in this list to create a tribute or get some social media attention. I genuinely loved this song in Sidhu Moosewala’s new EP “No Name”. The timing unfortunately was bad/ good I am not sure but it so happened that the singer was murdered just this week. I used to always tell my wife that most Punjabi tracks will have gunshot sounds and when I imitated them she would find it funny. But when I heard the news, I see how serious the gun-culture is over there in Punjab and somehow remedial measures have to be taken. Getting back to the music this is fun, and stylish and Sidhu sings in a way that totally thrills. He possesses the skill to vocalize at tough scales. The rap portion is quite exquisite thanks to Sunny Malton who writes the lyrics for his portion. May his soul rest in peace and may the culture of gun-toting perish forever. The keyboards, synths and rhythms along with electric guitar sounds all work quite well.

14.     Madeline

One of the best songs of the week, and sometimes the more I listen I feel maybe this song even deserved a much higher spot in the rankings. Kairvina is the singer and songwriter and it feels like a song out of a James Bond franchise, and the guitars and bass simply stun you as much as Kairvina’s singing. Sid Paul takes away the credit for producing and arranging everything including the instruments and vocal harmonies. There are moments where Kairvina soars with her improvisation and falsetto-bordering vibrato. Matty Harris does the mix and master while Bhaskar Sarma does the recording.

15.     Porisoy

I have always maintained that Assamese musicians tend to stick to the basics quite well. Compose a melodious tune and the rest will be taken care of, it is this simple fact that they follow. Glorious that Abhi Saiki makes it to India’s list of best music for the week, the same time that a champion from Assam in Anurag Saikia too has his song featured. In fact there are multiple musicians with the same last name who have done a fabulous job like Dimplae Saikia on the amazing Violin solo, Ron Saikia on guitars, and Dipalee Saikia Gogoi on lyrics. The Piano by George Phukan guides the track along with Abhi’s vocals, but the violin adds meat and depth to the track. Abhi has composed, produced and performed the track along with taking up mixing and mastering responsibilities as well. The song apparently deals with how an individual struggles to get over the past and the traumas attached. Only a violin probably captures the gravity of the message and hence it has been used predominantly. The song has fragments of similarity to AR Rahman’s “Jashn-e-bahaaraa”. The solo violin once again steals the show towards the end.

16. Heartheart

 The duo Dr. Kritika Nepal and Debo Sanyal create sounds that are very different in the EP, but this track really caught my attention. It is electronic music that will definitely be very appealing to music lovers of this generation, but there is quite a lot to like and enjoy when you hear this track. The title line is the best and it is sung with such finesse that would put any global singer to the test especially in this genre. Kritika has written, and sung while Debo has co-written and produced this track.

 17. Jeena Chahun

 I was stunned by his debut single “Pata Nahin” and then thankfully after a wait his 3^rd single does more than enough to get picked in this week’s list of best Indian songs. His vocals always hold your attention and that is why Shivansh Jindal will keep coming up with the goods all the time. Like his first single here too Shivansh writes, composes a very likable song with some classical touches. The production is straight out of the Salim-Sulaiman playbook with excellent arrangements and instrumentals that suit the modern ear and listening fervor without any compromise on the melody. Another brilliant young musician Muheet Bharti has co-produced the track along with Anshuman Sharma. You will love the words that Shivansh has himself penned and that when sung with his classical tone and aalap-filled delivery. Raj Pandit does the recording