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On a different track

photo: By special arrangement

ON A DIFFERENT TRACK Music director Prashant Pillai

Prashant Pillai, the young music director of “Shaitan” , is in the seventh heaven. Directed by Bejoy Nambiar and produced by Anurag Kashyap, the outrageously fiendish “Shaitan” has slick music.

Prashant, the Pune-based 29-year-old music director joins the ever-growing group of South Indian music directors — the likes of A.R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraaja, and, more recently, Devi Sri Prasad — who have set Bollywood afire with their debut chartbusters.

Prashant has composed seven of the 14 songs in the film, most notably the upbeat “Nashaa”, rocking “O Yaara”, and the film's signature track: the edgy “Bali – The Sound of Shaitan”.

“‘Shaitan' is the result of three years of toil. It was a conscious effort to go off the beaten track with the OST, and we didn't want to limit it to a particular genre of music. The credit goes to Bejoy and his taste in music.”

“He's amazing to work with, but he is equally the devil of a taskmaster who has no qualms about bugging me — and the other composers (Ranjit Barot, Amar Mohile, Anupam Roy, Bhayanak Maut) — until he, and each of us, was thrilled with the product.

“If not for Bejoy, we'd never have had a Sufi rock number, a Tamil hip-hop song, a death metal number, a retro funk tune… —all in one Hindi album,” says Prashant, who made his debut as a composer with Bejoy's short film “Rahu”.

Thanks to his parents' encouragement, especially his mother's, who instilled a love for music in him, this commerce graduate quit his job to study sound engineering in Chennai and follow his dreams in music.

After completing his course, he worked as an associate with Rahman for a while. “He polished my abilities as a composer,” says Prashant.

For now Prashant's kitty is full. He is finishing up the score for the upcoming Mammooty film “1993, Bombay March 12”.

Then there is a yet-to-be titled Tamil film, Lijo Jose's and Bejoy's next projects, a Hindi film based on the “Step Up” franchise, and an international project.

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