Top Indian Songs of the week - 23rd Jan 2022
This is the week's best music from across the nation. Music from every state written in every language, composed as a part of Movies and by Indie artists is listened to and after analyzing more than 350 tracks released in the week ending 23rd January 2022, I have rated and reviewed the 15 absolute best tracks in the country. This is truly India's ONLY multilingual music review and music curation page. Week after week, without any breaks you will get the review and links to the best work from musicians all over the country.
Find the full playlist of Top Songs this week on SPOTIFY
1. Sanware
The best song of last week according to me is this beautiful and outrageously melodious number that talks about a four-letter word called HOPE. Priyansh Srivastava and Garvit Sonihave composed this killer tune and they both have sung in this track as well. The opening lines showcase both of them and this is interesting as the vocal textures of both these vocalists vary tangibly. Priyansh does a bit more than just singing and serenading us as he has also written the lyrics along with Saurabh Jain and he also plays the wonderful guitars we hear all along. The flute solo comes in the interlude, and then we hear a nicely composed verse and though the song is complete in structure, the singing is probably what carries the track upward & forward, with some excellent aalap. Right after first verse observe the tempo picking up with some pacy guitars and the singing matches to it. The song is proof that if you have a melodious composition and some very able singers, you can create wonders with very little instrumentals and complexities as well. The track is produced by Garvit Soni. All the artwork is handled by Abhinandan Bhargava.
2. A twisted lullaby
You see some names, and then you know what I in store for you when you hear their music. Vinay Kaushal is right at the very top of pecking order of Indian musicians, in my opinion and just as I thought, he immensely impresses in this new EP called ‘Duality’. I particularly loved this track and it is really music like that makes you believe that Indians can compete and conquer at the highest level no matter what the field. He also picks some amazing vocalists when he composes and produces these singles and just like Aditi Ramesh was at her uniquely outstanding self in “The elephant in the room’, this time Yamini Lavanian is ravishing and delivers a superlative performance. The song starts out and I was confident that Vinay was playing the slide guitars, but apparently it is just acoustic guitar tunes and tweaked to play in baritone. Doesn't it sound brilliant and like something we only hear in songs from the Midwest in the US? Vinay has composed, produced, stereo mixed and mastered, and even done harmonies. I cannot emphasize enough on how magical Yamini sounds, and I can only kick myself saying why haven’t I heard her before. The song is meant to be a lullaby, only a bit twisted to suit our current living conditions and times. Yamini also exhibits her wide vocal range singing on lower scales and then even hitting the falsetto in between. Uma Athale writes these beautiful lines and we have Ronak Runwal doing the spatial mix and master. Aditya Gopalakrishnan has assisted on the guitar recording. I felt a lot like I was listening to “The chain� by Fleetwood Mac.
3. Ufaq
He interestingly names his instagram handle as Bhaskarville, how very creative. Well you don’t need any Sherlock Holmes and his art of deduction to confirm Anand Bhaskar’s genius and abilities as a musician. Time and again, the band Anand Bhaskar Collective delivers and this is one of the best yet. Scintillating electric guitars welcome you and they are played by Hrishi Giridhar. Anand gets pumped up on his vocals and we have some really charged up drums to match the intensity of electric guitars, thanks to Shishir Tao. Neelkanth Patel is not going to be left behind and you can hear him simply sizzle on his bass guitars. Ajay Jayanthi another usual suspect produces and mixes for the track with Christian Wright doing the mastering and assisted by Andrew T Mackay. To catch a segment of magic wait for the 2 minute 50 second mark on the timer to hear Shravan Sridhar explode on his Violin solo. The lyrics are written by Anand and Nidhi Sethia, with vocals recorded by Prathamesh Dudhane and Samarth Chawla being the other recording engineer.
4. Lat ulajhi
Kshitij Tarey is making a name for himself for picking some old gems and re-creating them with excellent refurbishments. Last week it was a project called “Baju Band� with Sniti Mishra that made it to this list of top songs, and this week we have a singer from Indian Idol 12, who presents this version of Lat Ulajhi. The Piano start things off along with the bass guitars by Abhishek Dasgupta, but there is some excellent intervention on the Sitar by Chirag Katti. Anjali is impeccable in singing this and she does use some spontaneous and effective aalap to add beauty to the song. It is set in the beautiful Raag of Bihag and to add another layer of classical music we have Akshay Jadhav on the Tabla. Reena Gilbert does a fabulous job recording, mixing and mastering the track and we have to thank the music label Strumm Entertainment for bringing back to life such old classics.
5. Chasm
Indian musicians and listeners are blessed because the variety, and scope to fuse different styles is enormous and I am a big fan of fusion music specifically thanks to songs like this. This is how the future of Indian fusion music should be, Period. Pavitha Venkitachalam sings at this low scale so impressively delivering the Carnatic lines and notes with precision. I for a long time kept thinking that there was some Revathi Raag influence, but when I later spoke with Pavithra, she told me that it is based in Raag Vakulabharanam. Incidentally upon some research I found that Revathi is a derivative from the melakarta Raaga Vakulabharanam and maybe that is why I felt happy that I was not way off! The guitars are played Farish Reheman who also has produced the track and his strumming along with Sreekanth Ramesh on drums add the rock/metal elements in the fusion. Let us not forget Sreeram Sreedharan’s constant support on the Violin, which embellish the track, with the Carnatic flavors. Vishnu Shenoy plays the Mridangam and it combines well with the electric guitar solo in the middle, which is a touch of class. Nivin Raphael has mixed and mastered the track. The outro with the drums, Mridangam, Violin, and elecltric guitars in one super Jugalbandi takes away the cake.
6. Raahein
I first heard about this duo when they worked with playback singer and musician Haricharan for a brilliant song called “Yaarum Illai�. I strongly recommend you guys take a listen as this is probably one of the best Tamil/Indian songs in the last few years. Anyway Pavithra Chari who is one of the duo is a Tamil singer who is trained in Classical Indian music and has a resounding voice and vocal potential to go with it. I am glad she has started getting some chances in Tamil movie albums of late. The other half is formed by Anindo Bose who is one of the busiest musicians around as he is involved with many bands, and indie musicians as their primary and trusted sound engineer. Just last week he was involved in two different songs that made it to my Top 15, viz. “Bihag� with Anirudh Varma and “Shes like a Breeze� with Rohan Prasanna. Now coming to this splendid score, which is apparently set in Raag Bhairavi we heard glimpses of Pavithra’s vocal prowess. The programming, production, sound design and Keyboards all are handled by Anindo and he mixes and masters the track at Plug ‘n’ Play Studios. These elements add wonderful fusion layers to an otherwise very classical sounding song. We even feel like we are listening to a synth pop track thanks to Anindo’s expertise.
7. Tera Mera & Beqaraar
I just posted on Instagram, saying how pleasantly surprised I was listening to the album “Loop Lapeta� after years of monotony and mediocrity from Bollywood music. I loved two songs ‘Tera Mera’ composed by Rahul Pais & Nariman Khambatta at The Jamroom, while ‘Beqaraar’ is composed by Santanu Ghatak. ‘Tera Mera’ has a very Western lullaby kind of a texture and tone to it and it is vastly helped by Sharvi Yadav’s singing. Siddhant Kaushal has penned the lyrics, and Rahul conducts the vocals. The duo called ‘The Jamroom’ also produce this track which is sober and I love the introduction of the Trumpets along with some steady guitar strumming. The recording engineer is Jarvis Marcedo who has also mixed and mastered the track along with Donal Whelan. As we approach the closing segment there is a nice strings section, with some dreamy humming, mildly followed by the trumpets as well.
‘Beqaraar’ starts off like a retro song from the 1960s and sounds quite Latinized as well. I am reminded of RD Barman maybe because the song just like this yesteryear great had notes which weren’t all too predictable. The lines “Mehki raton mein, yeh behka khwabon mein� are amazing especially the second half which has a twist. Raghav Kaushik is one of favorite Indie musicians and I am glad he gets an opportunity to shine here. Ronkini Gupta has been featured on my blog as well and she does the female vocal lead. Interestingly the dominance of the Accordion is replaced by the Piano after the opening lines and it now sounds fresh rather than retro. Mayank Chaudhary plays a great hand with his guitars, arrangements and programming, and as Saikat Sarkar plays the role of recording engineer, Vijay Dalal mixes and masters the track. Santanu Ghatak writes an composes this heartfelt melody.
8. Mujse ek baat
Sarthak Kalyani does it again, and after his beautiful composition called ‘Saahiba’ a couple of weeks ago, he returns with another semi-classical number. He is focused on getting old ghazals written in the form of Urdu Poetry back to life through a project he called “Muhafiz�. The trio has Sarthak, Siddharth Chopra and Neeraj Shetty. With the first two involved in the composition and Neeraj produces this track. As I was hearing this through the delightful vocals of Sarthak, I heard a strong sense of Raag Shankarabharanam in Carnatic music, which is called Bilaval in Hindustani. Then when I had a word with Sarthak, he tells me saying that there are many Raagas intertwined with Bilaval also playing a mild part. The original Urdu lyrics are written by Mushafi Ghulam Hamdani. The guitars and rhythms provide the right impetus to the song and modernize this rendition and a big kudos to the trio for all the programming and final output.
9. Imposter
This Chennai based duo Pavithra Krishnaswamy and Goutham Kumar have been on my radar for more than a year, and this time they make it to the top songs of the nation with a super fun track which has more layers than you can follow at the first instance. The indie producer/composer Ashwin Vinayagamoorthy produces this one as the composition, writing and performances are handled by Coconut Milk Project. We at the very beginning listen to acoustic and electric guitars by Sridhar Varadarajan who also has played the Bouzouki. The rhythms are so catchy thanks to Ashwin and Siva Prakasam who play it along with Percussions. Pavithra’s singing is lovable as she doesn’t fake an accent and it does feel a bit like how an Indian would sing in English and that is admirable as she shows there is beauty in it. The mix of the singing and instruments gives a feeling of a Church Gospel and one can feel the underlying basslines thanks to Kabeeb Sivaprasad. Goutham joins on the vocals as well, and I love the lines that begin from “They are going to catch you soon� and this and everything that follows sounds like a very melodious Indian tune. Nived Np can be heard doing an excellent job on the Piano, Synth and string arrangements. I love the part where the percussions take a breather and she sings� There must be something at which I’m the best�. All additional keyboard and textural arrangements are by Ashwin with recording, mixing and mastering by Sivanesh Natarjan
10. Hope
The last time Anubha Kaul and Aman Jagwani combines, it was ethereal as an EP and I loved “This place� and featured it as well. Anubha dindt stop there, her EP “Fractals� will probably be covered by me as one of the best EPs of 2021. Now they get together again, as Anubha writes and sings like a sorceress, with Fryderyk HD playing the solo on Keys and Benjamin plays the Vibraphone which is something like a Xylophone, and it sounds excellent in Jazz compositions. Aman is outrageously good as he produces, composes plays the drums and synths and even mixes the track. You can hear the drums so mildly behind all the vocals and harmonies, almost mesmerizing us into oblivion. Music like this should be promoted and popularized by the scores of OTT based content as stuff like this would be splendid OST of the highest quality. Well done Aman and Anubha, and finally Ayan De masters the track.
11. Its all good
I had to read the credits a few times to ensure I wasn’t’ listening to some American singer-songwriter blast his way into my headphones. I was ultimately glad and proud that this guy hails from Goa. It is written, composed, arranged and performed by him and I recommend that you drop everything else and just listen to this song and be transported to Colorado or Idaho in the US. The guitars are solid and Kristian uses his vocals so brilliantly being gentle at times, like the humming, and then upping the ante when he has to. I promise you I felt like I was listening to Mark Knopfler of ‘Dire Straits’ especially when he vocalized in a speaking style like in “Money for Nothing�. Play this, let your windows down and speed up on the highway and you will know why I picked this song. The video has been shot and edited by Mohit Sebastian
12. Haiya Ho
The Tapi Project did a fair job the last time with their folk fusion single and this time they earned their spot this list with a heartwarming and anthem-like song with a title even that sounds like one. This song apparently has taken inspiration from fishermen in Kerala, venturing into unchartered territories. You can hear the wonderful humming bits probably suggestive of the fishermen singing in unison. The song is composed the band comprising of Yogendra Saniyawala, Swati Minaxi, Anand Joseph Mani and Gaurav Kapadia. Swati’s vocals are simply grand and she show amazing potential singing like a rock star in a folk song almost like she idolizes a Sunidhi Chauhan. Yogendra is strumming the guitars and also involved in the backing vocals and has penned the lyrics. Gaurav plays the energetic hand at drums and Biju Nambiar is the man on the Piano, electric Piano, and Keyboards. The backing vocals are done by all these band menmbers and you can even hear a children’s team of vocalists Kashvi Singh, Vedika Agrawal and Arjun Agrawal. Listen to a small section on the guitars which is just mind-numbing good after Swati sings “Barsa barsa�. The electric bass is played by Don Manuel Iagullon, and as Hersh Desai records, Vijay Benegal mixes and Ashyar Balsara masters the track.
13. Jahan
Ketan Mohite is consistent with his singles and I have been very fond of his releases. I like that he tries to be diverse in his scores, and this one evokes feelings of wanderlust and tranquility. Bruno Merz and Ketan compose and perform this song. I could sense the theme of this song and just I called it wanderlust, I find that the video shows Spiti Valley, and this shows the skillful musical score. The humming portions are really transcendental and with the mild percussions and the English lines magnify the effect. Just when you think it cannot get better, Annanda Prasanna Pattanaik intervenes in the softest and most magical way possible on his flute. Vinayak Pol and Kaustubh Joshi appear on their bikes in the video and it just makes me want to revisit these heavenly lands again.
14. Ghalat
Score something in Raag Yaman and you are bound to create a gem. This is no different, as it is simple in structure but delivered well by Himani Kappor. Lakshay and Siddharth Singh compose this tune, with lyrics penned by Lakshay and Dhruv Yogi. The interlude is a pleasant one with the flute, keyboards and Tabla. This song too reminds me of “Na Tenu Samjhawan� somewhere in the verse. The track is produced by Viplove Rajdeo and mastered by Abhishek Ghatak.
15. Red bird
If looks could kill is a famous movie title, but what if a voice could kill? Jeremiah de Rozario is a youngster from Kochi who sings like a dream and that is not all? I have featured each and every one of his singles and he just keeps getting better, this lad,so watch out for him. The voice has a texture that just makes you want to close your eyes and take in everything. Rahul Ranganath has produced, mixed and mastered while Nandha Gopan is the sound engineer. The mild strumming of guitar both acoustic and electric makes sure the attention is not taken away from the vocals. Souparnika Rajagopal plays backup vocalist and the words mean so much talking about fearless people waiting to spread their wings and fly. The video credits are as follows; Direction/Creative Direction by Susanna Vincy, Cast comprising of Gowri D Prasad and Priyaja Prem Cinematography by Gerson Pearson, Rony Robert while Editing is by Gerson Pearson and the Video Production is by White Shadows Film Co.
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.