Nancy’s silky vocals outdo Habib’s in Didha, but the tune is spell binding – its rather simple, but haunting and adorned with appropriately restrained backgrounds. Traditional Bangla sounds peek in Limon’s Jaikhanar chithi, in a mildly Rahman’ish folk tune improvised with neat pop orchestration while Mithila is nothing short of scintillating while crooning Ogochore – Topu’s mellow, guitar-laden sound is vaguely reminiscent of Pritam’s work, but is very enjoyable. The composer joins Anila in Shes chiti, a pop-rock’ish concoction that’s amazingly easy on the ears. Divorce is interesting, but gimmicky, though Limon’s vocals work well, but Nancy aces the next track, K-J Kar, the pick of the soundtrack, with a brilliantly arranged, soulful melody. Sumi’s Pora bashi is flat, but the folk influence is well adapted in the atmospheric sound, while out of the two instrumentals, the first one works better with that marginally Kitaro’esque sound. Beyond RD/ SD Burman’s older Bengali film songs, my exposure to Bengali music is limited. Music from Bangaldesh? Zilch! This is the first Bangladeshi soundtrack I’ve heard in my life and I’m mighty impressed with what Topu – of the band Yaatri – has created. The music flows beautifully, is very tuneful and sounds damn good!
Keywords: Topu, Yaatri
Update: As ‘Bach’ mentions in the comments, Topu may not have composed all the songs. He lists the composers as follows, 1. Didha – composed by Habib Wahid; 2. K-J Kar & Jail Khanar Chithi – composed by Prince Mahmud; 3. Agochhore – composed by Tahsan; 4. Sesh Chithi – composed by Fuad; 5. Divorce – composed by Limon. I have the CD and even showed it to a Bong friend for confirmation – but assumed that the names mentioned against each track refers to the singer!
Note: If the above review interests you, try Yaatri’s Facebook page and their official website!
