The first single of the album is PRIORITY- Watch the video of the song along with it and you’ll appreciate it doubly. The video uses a lot of animation, and shows the aspects of everyday life by depicting human beings as animals – there are the pedestrians shown as snails, busy ants all over the stations, bats hanging from trains, serpents slithering over railway tracks, monkeys fighting in a restaurant. In a way, the world around you as you wake up every day and all this time, a soft melody played on the sitar backed by electronic beats. The ‘zitar’ makes an entry half way and the animals all get transformed to sea creatures and start heading in one single, focused direction. Melodious, rhythmic and powerful. A perfect album starter? You bet!
IRIS PEG – A very intense heart-wrenching feel throughout the song. The ‘zitar’ comes in between to produce the essential fill ins. Apart from that, the song has a nice acoustic guitar playing in the background and starts off with a spiritual type of an intro on the keyboard. The flute enters, followed by the vocals for the first time in the album. A slightly husky voice filled with a lot of passion and pain can best describe the vocals.
BABUR COME TO INDIA – action-packed with a lot of electronic effects and the sense of urgency in the sound. The vocals in this track comprise of mantras recited throughout in the background, and long cries in male and female voices, making the atmosphere slightly eerie. However perfect setting for the master himself who contributes with exciting rapid ‘zitar’ solos in between and towards the end. The track ends on the same dark note that it started in.
TAJ MAHAL – If BABUR COME TO INDIA set your nerves wrangling with its dark, exciting edge-of-the-seat progressions, Niladri brings them down with this soothing composition. Whenever the song heads towards a darker horizon, the classical instruments come to the rescue. First, it is the sitar at the beginning, as it provides a delicious melody to chew upon throughout the remainder of the song. The flute brings back the good feeling in the middle with its own solo. The ‘zitar’ and the sitar both spring into action towards the end, building upon the initial melody and do a mighty good job bringing the little-over-7-minute song to a fitting close.
YEARNING – Experimentation at its best. You have the techno intro comprising of single notes, which explodes into a rhythm which will make any DJ proud. The techno sound accompanied by the ascending keyboard in the background gives off that very endearing Indian Fusion music feeling, one that is heightened when the vocalist embarks upon lyrics of having lost someone in life and the long yearning for them thereafter. Again, the ‘zitar’ rips through the song with a rapid-fire solo which blends in perfectly with the music.
LOVE IN SEPTEMBER – This one is deep, soulful, romantic, exotic and seductive! A very tasteful piece of music accompanies the vocalist in this track – a mix of testiness, the calmness surrounding the lyrics, the intensity and the passion that is reflected in the vocals.
The album has its share of mellow and intense songs, and meddles a lot with Experimental and Lounge themes. What remains constant throughout is the method in which the string instruments are used. The guitar, sitar, the sarangi and the ‘zitar’ are elements which are associated with introducing calm and modicum in places of distress and unease, in their own way. The sitar brings peace and the pleasant, and the ‘zitar’ pulls one towards focus and a determined sense of direction.
TAKE IT EASY and LIPLOCKED are two lighter tracks, with LIPLOCKED being the softer flute version of IRIS PEG.
FINAL JOURNEY starts off with a true finality tone, I really like the theme firstly, and the way the instrumentation wavers around it delicately prodding in between to produce orchestral sounds with a continuous singular booming of the bass. A beautiful track, and fitting for a conclusion to an album that’s been totally about soul, life and melody.
One piece of advice – Pick up this album, play the songs, listen to them, DO NOT be too judgmental on the unorthodox mix of instruments and sound producers. Chuck the genre, chuck the details, just feel it as it passes through your ears and slowly into your head. Pretty soon, it’ll all be coming out of your heart! That’s about the best description I can give to this album.
Bottom Line
An album that can make you laugh, cry, reminisce, shriek with joy, get you focused, all at once and pretty much make you go through every emotion - all through the genius of one man.
