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Rang Rangeeli Yeh Duniya by Giju
Raga to Rocky Records,
Rs 150
This man is just unbelievable. Engineering, Carnatic music, Bharatanatya and Salsa…yes, Giju has dabbled with all of these, and is still not a ‘jack’ of all but a master of each! Giju is an Indian born vocalist. Brought up in Thiruv
ananthapuram, he completed his engineering course even as he was passionately pursuing Bharatnatyam and Carnatic lessons. The spirited musician now lives in the U.S., and is an engineer with the R&D department of a major chip manufacturing corporation. He has participated in professional music bands both in India and in the U.S.
Says Giju, “Since childhood I was enamoured with Bollywood, the beats of Hindi songs, the spirit and temperament of the swaying music and the poetic language.”
So, it must have been a dream come true for Giju to bring about his debut album “Rang Rangeeli Yeh Duniya” who has set the music to suit Salsa dance steps. “It’s the lyrics, tune and the beats that collectively bring about an upbeat Latin-American mood,” he says.
Why the Salsa influence after Indian forms of music and dance? “It happened without my knowledge. I was with my friends at an evening party where I saw a captivating Salsa performance and I was smitten. The Salsa bug bit me hard, and that’s it, I wanted to get trained and here I am,” he says. Giju is now a recognised Salsa dancer and choreographer and a member of the Salsamania Dance Company, a world ranked No. 3 Salsa dance troupe. Giju has since performed in the U.S., Europe and Mexico.
Eight original tracks in Hindi make up ‘Rang Rangeeli Yeh duniya’ (brought out by Raga to Rock Records) including a duet with the renowned playback singer Sadhana Sargam. Teaming up on the album are composer Benny Johnson and lyricist Swati Sinha, fashioning a wave for a growing style of melody that could be christened ‘Indi-Salsa.’
The album flags off with the peppy title track “Rang Rangeeli” and captivates with intermittent Spanish phrases - Tu vida vivela; La vida es bella - that set a rhythmic pace and mood in the house version, a joyous tune that translates into “It’s your life, live it, This life is beautiful.”
The medium paced “Dil ko kiya bekarar” gives room for cadenced Spanish steps; the guitar and the drums rock for a more upbeat “Dhoondun tujhe” even as the duet “Sun panchiyon ka raag” reflects his Bollywood influence before giving us a peep into a short talk-melody, but the female voice here sounds too shrill and out of place for a Salsa jig.
However the Indian-rock mix “Jeena Woh Jeena Hai”, “Ashtoofah”, with varied beats befitting couples shaking a leg; and the Arabic mix is fashioned to suit current trend of swing and sway. “I wanted to be a pop star, bring a Bollywood flavour and set it to Salsa beats,” says Giju, who is happy his songs in the album went through at least five revisions before completion.
Giju says dance is a medium to release all his energy. It’s no wonder that the engineer was “intrigued by the passion on the dance floor between a man and a woman in a Salsa mode.”
RANJANI GOVIND
Into the Light
Music Today, CD, Rs. 295
There’s a boom in the music industry. Everyone now speaks of a new sound, new experiments and new dreams. But now, even the “new sounds” are beginning to sound similar. Even in the past, we have had musicians and composers influence
d by Western forms, but now more than ever before. Particularly in the genre of fusion, a lot of cross-cultural experiments are being done, not just in terms of borrowing musical idioms, but collaborating with Western musicians and ideas. “Into The Light” by U. Rajesh joins the Indo-Western fusion line of albums. Rajesh has composed for the album along with Anil Srinivasan.
It is quite evident in “Into The Light” that Rajesh believes in the genre of fusion and as he himself admits in an interview is “constantly engaged in an effort to evolve newer, more inclusive musical languages.” However, it’s not as if he doesn’t know the dangers of the genre but he has his answers ready. “Over the years, many people have misused the name fusion. Fusion does not mean that I try to play Western music on my mandolin or that someone else plays Carnatic on his guitar. It is the interaction of two pure forms to create something new. It is like mixing two colours to get a totally new colour.”
Some of the tracks are well-known Indian melodies such as “Annapoorne” by Muthuswamy Dikshitar, while the other numbers have been specially composed for the album by U. Rajesh along with Anil Srinivasan as the pianist. Annapoorna has a soothing piano track. It is at once understated and stately. Since there aren’t too many instruments, and with the mridangam kept subtle, it creates a nice mood.
While there are traces of film music, there are very typical Rahman kind of inflexions too in the compositions.
Sunrise, particularly… reminds of the sax bit in the film “Duet”. “Rainwalk” apparently was composed when it was actually raining. It’s got a probing introspective feel to it, with some real intense phrases on the mandolin.
In all, it’s an average album with some brilliant sparks. I think I preferred Anil Srinivasan’s enterprise with Sikkil Gurucharan better. It had a lot of silence and was more profound.
DEEPA GANESH
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