Shan Rehman’s inventive streak is evident in the way he differentiates the two versions of Maamarangale – the former with Vijay Yesudas and a folk-tinged, tabla-base, but with mild mod...
Continue reading...Malayalam OST
Music review: Puthiya Mugham (Malayalam – Deepak Dev)
The highlight of Puthiya Mugham is Prithviraj’s vocals in Kaane kaane and the actor passes the singing test with flying colors – the suddenly soaring tune by Deepak too helps...
Continue reading...Music review: Ritu (Malayalam – Rahul Raj)
Despite his occasionally failing vocals, Rahul Raj impresses in the light and frothy Venal kaattil, with lovely use of guitar, while Gayatri and Suchith breeze through the considerably slower melody...
Continue reading...Music review: Bhagyadevatha (Malayalam – Ilayaraja)
After lamenting forever about the lack of anything interesting from Ilayaraja, here he comes…with a 3-track soundtrack – in Malayalam! Thira Thallippoyalum by Karthik is delightful nostalgia – an unpolluted...
Continue reading...Music review: Nammal Thammil (Malayalam – Jayachandran)
The filmy rain song, Junile nilamazhayil is a very pleasant listen, despite the predictable, Vidyasagar’ish tune, while after that classically-inclined prelude, Thottu thottu degenerates into a catchy, but mundane pseudo-Punjabi...
Continue reading...SMS (Malayalam – Ilayaraja)
Kadapurathoru sounds rhythmically good, but is terribly predictable – everything after the first line is so obvious – worse, the anupallavi is teeming with that damn synth. Marachonnu is embarrassing,...
Continue reading...Innathe Chintha Vishayam (Malayalam – Ilayaraja)
Kastoori pottum has everything you expect out of a Raja song, Vijay Yesudas’ vocals moving through every direction the composer has conjured up in the tune…heck it even has a...
Continue reading...Mulla (Malayalam – Vidyasagar)
Rimi Tomy’s sparkling vocals add immense value to the traditional Murugan song, Aarumugan munnil, while Ee raavil is a delightful potpourri of a weird prelude, techno backgrounds and a hint...
Continue reading...Sooryan (Malayalam, Ilayaraja)
Yesudas’ Kalyani Dharmavathi (see comments) in Ambe vaani and Kavalam Sreekumar, Sankaran Namboodri combination in Shabdhamayee (Shanmugapriya? Jonpuri? Raagavardhini – see comments) present the now-outdated, unadulterated filmi-classical genre. Ishtakkari, despite...
Continue reading...Vinodayatra (Malayalam – Ilayaraja)
It’s a rather strange dual dichotomy actually. Firstly, the man gives us his best in languages other than Tamil, namely Telugu and Malayalam. The second one is that while two...
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