Trippin on the Sounds of India

After heat, dust and bright colours, sound is often the next thing that hits a traveller in India. Sneha Kahnwalker, the Bollywood music director for films including Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and LSD, has made a TV series exploring the unique sounds in a particular place. Sound Trippin documents her travels to ten places in India to record their sounds and put them into a song representing that place.

The first episode of Sound Trippin aired on MTV India last Saturday. It was set in the Punjab where Sneha visited the Qila Raipur Rural Olympics and a cricket bat factory in Jalandhar to record her sounds. She also visited Jyoti and Sultana Noora, two singing sisters who she worked with on the Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! soundtrack.

Dub Sharma, a dubstep producer from Chandighar, was given the task of putting the sounds and vocals together into a coherent piece of music. Saw sounds from the factory and motorbike sounds were used to create the bass line whilst the Noora sisters’ vocals floated on top. The result is an innovative folksy dubstep track that is rustic and retains its sense of geographical identity. The song called Tung Tung is accompanied by slickly edited shots of the Rural Olympics and people of the Punjab.

Sound Trippin is made by Babbel Fish Productions, the same company who made The Dewarists and I think I prefer Sound Trippin. I found The Dewarists pretentious in places. It focused more on the personal development of the musicians rather than the music they composed and the place they composed it in. Sound Trippin however puts the emphasis on the sounds and the places and people that make them. Sound Trippin also seemed to connect with the place more than The Dewarists did.

My only criticism of the programme was its length. Half an hour was far too short for this show. I wanted to see more of the Olympics and get to know the Noora sisters rather than see a brief overview of how they worked together with Sneha. The footage was beautifully shot but it whizzed by all too fast.

Sadly there is no news as yet if the tracks made in the series will be released. Tung Tung would work well as a stand alone track so I’m hoping that they will be released for download by the end of the series at the latest.

The next episode is set in Varanasi and airs on MTV India next Saturday. Or watch it on the MTV India website.

The Decline of the Album: Part One

Just before everyone went home for Easter, Jassi Sidhu tweeted about how the UK has lost interest in albums and advised artists to release singles instead. According to Jassi, the UK market has a short attention span which can’t stretch beyond a few videos and artists will only release a full album if they have fans in India who will buy them. This kicked off a little debate and inspired this post.

Firstly I want to praise the concept of an album. I think they have an important place in every music industry and it is sad that they are slowly dying out. If a single acts as an artist’s business card, an album acts as a CV. It gives an overview of what a person is capable of doing and allows them space to show their strengths and talent. One song can differ hugely from the next and it’s only through an album can the listener really begin to understand the artist.

ITunes is great as it is so quick and easy to buy music. You can get music as soon as it is released and you don’t even have to leave the house. Before Itunes, I used to have to go to Birmingham or London to buy music. But the success of iTunes has lead to the demise of the traditional music shop. There used to be loads of them but now most of my favourite specialist music shops have been turned into beauty parlours. In India where music shops are still widespread it is often easier to purchase a than to download one and that is partly why the album is still popular over there.

Despite the benefits of iTunes I miss the thrill that went with the experience of buying a CD from a shop. They were staffed by people who loved music and it was great to see someone getting as excited as I was by a new album. Staff could also recommend other albums to me once they knew what I liked. I relied on this advice when searching for new music, especially as teasers were non existent. ITunes tries to suggest similar albums, but it can never truly replicate this experience.

Staff were also knowledgeable about the music they sold. In the days before shazaam, I taped a song off the radio so it could be identified. On another occasion I described the details of a song and dance routine from a Bollywood film so I could buy the soundtrack. Both times staff knew what they were and could sell them to me.

Take Five: Mera Laung Gawacha

The Punjabi folk song Mera Laung Gawacha, about a girl who has lost her nose ring, has had several remakes and remixes over the years. Coy double meanings aside, the song is one of my favourites and new version sounds very different to the last.

This version by Surinder Kaur and Mohammad Sadiq, was probably the first recording of Mera Laung Gawacha although some maintain that Mussarat Nazir sung it first. Both versions are classics regardless who sang it first.

Katy Perry Spices Up California Gurls

Katy Perry, who performed her song Teenage Dreams t at the IPL Opening Ceremony in Chennai last night, has released a remix of her hit single California Gurls called Bolly Gurls. On twitter she stated "In honor of my visit to INDIA, here's a FREE, SPICED up version of CALIFORNIA GURLS *BOLLYWOOD MEETS HOLLYWOOD*" Remixed by Jack Raynor, the track is set against a backdrop of dance scenes from Bollywood films including Aaja Nachle, Om Shanti Om and Main Hoon Na and also incorporates the original music video for California Gurls.

While I liked the original California Gurls, I'm not sure about the remix. The Indian elements that have been added to the song are the stereotypical bols and twangy sitar which don't quite connect properly with the song. However, the video accompanying the remix is well put together. It's nice to see so many great actresses crammed into one short clip.  If you like the track you can download it here.

Culture Shock - Legal Tender 2.5 Review

With over 100,000 downloads so far, Legal Tender 2.5 by Culture Shock must be one of the most successful free downloads of the year. When it was first released some fans were unable to download it because it was so popular and the servers could not cope with the demand. A sign of just how much people wanted to get their hands on this album. Some of the songs on the mixtape were previously released, but for the purpose of this review I will ignore this and look at each track individually in the context of the album.

It’s clear a lot of hard work has gone into making and promoting the album. Each track is well produced and it is nice that the group have made themselves available to fans for questions and feedback. Lyrics are usually hard to get hold of, but each song has its own video on youtube complete with sing-a-long captions. An English translation in these videos would have been a nice addition.

After listening to the album a few times it appears that many of the songs have a similar structure: strong beats set against an electro bass background, a language change in the vocals halfway through the song accompanied by a change in tempo then back again. This is a successful formula, and forms part of Culture Shock’s unique style, but makes some of the songs sound similar to each other and at times I would have liked more variation.

Some of the tracks have the same title and come in pairs. They will either be in different languages, or will have the Punjabi removed from the other version. I like the concept, especially as it reaches out to those who don’t want to listen to music in another language, but it makes the album feel repetitive at times if you understand both languages. 

Beautiful is a song that has two versions in different languages and the lyrics in the English version hint to the title of the album. The addition of the female vocalist makes a nice contrast in the English version, but I found them distracting in the Punjabi version. Choppy syncopated beats open Drum Roll. The Punjabi contrasts nicely with the English vocals and I preferred the Punjabi version to the English only version of the song.