Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Vishal Bharadwaj B sides

More conjecture on Vishal Bharadwaj's genius. I hope he composes more tracks than he currently does.

Dil to Baccha hai ji - Ishqiya
Classic from start to finish. Starts off with the harmonica and an acoustic (spanish guitar probably). The instrumentation on this track is straight from a 60s film set in Italy, Greece or Spain with its doumbek and flamenco style clapping and shouting a la Demi Roussos. Actually it does remind me of the wedding scene in Godfather. I am big fan of the middle eastern doumbek and salute vishal for using it in his track (probably first since R D Burman's use of these instruments in the flamboyant 70's tracks).

Badalon Se - Satya
This is the track that first got me interested in vishaal Bharadwaj's composition. Strong use of acoustic guitars with the melodic but rarely used voice of Bhupinder.

Title track - Kaminey
What I love the most about this track is the symphonic arrangements which are a little overweight on violins. Vishal also uses electric guitar solos blended with the trumpet (might be a sax)very effectively. The electronic samples make the song very moody as is required in the film at which this song comes in.

Naina - Omkara
This is one of Vishal's more heavy compositions featuring Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's vocals. Strong bassline and quite heavy use of electic guitars with plenty of white space to maximise on Rahat's strong voice. The lyrics is quite traditional and dark (again to keep with the mood of the film).

Notable mentions: Chappa Chappa (great song but trumped by his more recent works)

Of course the strength of Gulzar's lyrics on all these tracks only makes them better, but you have to hand it to Vishal for being able to so effortlessly handle the words time and again.