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From the `soul'
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Choreographer-turned-singer Vijay Athma tries his hand at Indipop
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VERSATILE Vijay Athma's album packs a punch
The inlay card of Vijay Athma's debut music album is one for the books. The artiste's name appears five times in a row. He is apparently the music composer, singer and lyricist for the album, the choreographer and model in the video. Talk about multi-faceted personalities.
Considering the fact that releasing an album of original non-film songs in India itself deserves more than a pat on the back (not too many artistes or music companies are willing to budge an inch from the `Remix' formula), we cannot but appreciate the courage of the man to single-handedly create an entire album, make the video and feature in it.
Athma's background in choreography is a direct result of his collaboration with a guy called Shelly Arora for a dance training institute called Latino Dance Club in Pune.
Athma teaches students the Salsa, the Samba, the Tango and other Latin American dance forms. Though there is no Latino flavour in his tracks, the videos feature some impressive twisting and turning.
Vijay Athma's album, Let The Story Unfold (Times Music; CD; Rs. 195) seems a bit out of place in the so-called `Indipop' scene, but Athma's efforts at sounding honest and straight has seen the album growing gradually in popularity.
The skyrocketing popularity of the first single from the album, Thoya Thoya and its slow, steady journey up the charts is reason enough for featuring Athma in this column this week.
When you first hear Thoya Thoya, it gives you a `I've heard this tune somewhere before' feeling. Hear it for the second time and you realise the song has a (hopefully unintentional) resemblance to Gila Gila from the soundtrack of the movie Aitraaz, Bollywood's reply to the Michael Douglas-Demi Moore starrer Disclosure. Hear it for the third time and you realise Athma's track is a much better product.
The innovative use of the flute and his smooth, husky vocals has made it a hummable, breezy number.
The remix version of the track, which appears towards the end of the album is hugely danceable. The naughty, bubbly side of the man comes alive in tracks like Nach Le and Mere Sanam, while the other tracks in the album range from moderately slow to pacy numbers, a common factor being a "don't worry, life is `bindaas'" attitude. An impressive single-handed debut effort straight from the `athma'.
A. VISHNU
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