The era we live in has been called many names: Generation Z, the Post Millennial Generation, the Digital Age, the Last-Generation-to-Know-What-Real-Food-Tastes-Like.
In the music world, it seems everything is now formatted into a playlist. This is the Playlist Era. Most magazines, be they dedicated to fashion, art, cooking or travel, are not complete unless the editors (or more preferably, a celebrity) compile a list of "must listen to" tracks.
And I suppose Sunday Sounds is one of those playlists, though I’ve never truly understood it as such. My attempt each week is to share with Scroll readers an artist or perhaps a type of music I think is exciting and deserves (more) attention. I try to tie the tracks together with some narrative about a person, a group or a common theme in the music. The focus is not on the tracks themselves so much as on the people behind them.
A playlist, on the other hand is a collection of songs, like you hear on the radio. One follows another and gives way to the next. There may be a unifying theme, but usually there isn't. Too often, on the run-of-the-mill playlists, the key criteria seems to be the popularity of the song at the current moment in time. The better playlists though are a great place to learn and hear songs that might lead to new favourite artists, and as such, these obsequious lists have their place in the ecology of music.
This week, I’ve put together the Sunday Sounds Playlist. It's a group of songs with no single theme, but united nonetheless, in that they are pretty cool, definitely not big hits, but worthy of being heard and enjoyed by a wider audience.
So, without further ado…
Karunesh
Solitude
Starting off on the mellow side, German New Age performer Karunesh performs Solitude, which first hit a global audience as part of the third Buddha Bar compilation. Bruno Reuter, a musician from Germany, landed in India in the late 1970s after a near death motorcycle accident sent him on a spiritual quest. This led him to his guru Rajneesh/Osho, a name change, and eventually a full time pursuit of the sort of spiritualised Eastern music that is so popular in the West. While it is easy to make fun of this sort of music, Karunesh generally delivers high quality stuff, including this track built around a passionate and enigmatic Hindi lyric and some superb violin playing.
TM Soundarrajan
Paravaigal Palavitham (Film: Iruvar Ullam)
The voice of MGR and Sivaji Ganesan for most of their careers, TM Soundarrajan or simply TMS gives an upbeat performance in the 1963 film Iruvar Ullam. The lighthearted song opens the film with TMS’s airy tenor (which is every bit as polished as the north’s Rafi sahib), creating the perfect mood for what appears to be a romantic comedy-cum-love triangle melodrama set in a fast modernising India. This melody and TMS’s "wowowos" will have you humming all week.
Shlipa Ray
Burning Bride
You'll be lucky when she runs
Out of desire
Sunshine when her corpse is on fire
Hard-hitting lyrics and gutsy singing are the trademark of Bengali-New Yorker Shlipa Ray. Compared to everyone from the Cramps, to Australian icon Nick Cave (who has released some of her work on his own Bad Seed label), Ray’s parents did all they could to discourage her from listening to western pop music as a child. They failed miserably, obviously. Shlipa did, however, take up the harmonium, that most innocuous of desi instruments, and has transformed it into her main prop as well as a vehicle for her powerful and darkly humorous music. With its disturbing, angry lyric, this track reminds me of PJ Harvey: big themes, big deliberate, and simple arrangements, and big haunted and bewitching vocals.
Raza Khan
Nazaron Se
Using the harmonium in a more traditional setting, that of the qawwali, Raza Khan is one of the most exciting voices to come out of the subcontinent in years. A born again practising Christian from Punjab, Khan co-opts the mystical Islamic form of qawwali to express his own spiritual messages. Blessed with a voice and frenetic passion that grabs the listener by the collar and forces total submission, Raza Khan’s performances are always stunning. His CD, available through DeKulture, is a must-have for any lover of South Asian sufi music.
Sibti
Peshwar ki Ladki
How many stereotypes can you fit into one short song? Apparently a lot, if you are Sibti, a Pakistani band who claim to make music that will make you swoon. We end this playlist with a spoof of Pathan male culture replete with bad Urdu, charas cigarettes and male lady dancers (hence, Peshawar ka ladki). Watch it here. What is the point of music if it doesn’t make you smile?
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In the music world, it seems everything is now formatted into a playlist. This is the Playlist Era. Most magazines, be they dedicated to fashion, art, cooking or travel, are not complete unless the editors (or more preferably, a celebrity) compile a list of "must listen to" tracks.
And I suppose Sunday Sounds is one of those playlists, though I’ve never truly understood it as such. My attempt each week is to share with Scroll readers an artist or perhaps a type of music I think is exciting and deserves (more) attention. I try to tie the tracks together with some narrative about a person, a group or a common theme in the music. The focus is not on the tracks themselves so much as on the people behind them.
A playlist, on the other hand is a collection of songs, like you hear on the radio. One follows another and gives way to the next. There may be a unifying theme, but usually there isn't. Too often, on the run-of-the-mill playlists, the key criteria seems to be the popularity of the song at the current moment in time. The better playlists though are a great place to learn and hear songs that might lead to new favourite artists, and as such, these obsequious lists have their place in the ecology of music.
This week, I’ve put together the Sunday Sounds Playlist. It's a group of songs with no single theme, but united nonetheless, in that they are pretty cool, definitely not big hits, but worthy of being heard and enjoyed by a wider audience.
So, without further ado…
Karunesh
Solitude
Starting off on the mellow side, German New Age performer Karunesh performs Solitude, which first hit a global audience as part of the third Buddha Bar compilation. Bruno Reuter, a musician from Germany, landed in India in the late 1970s after a near death motorcycle accident sent him on a spiritual quest. This led him to his guru Rajneesh/Osho, a name change, and eventually a full time pursuit of the sort of spiritualised Eastern music that is so popular in the West. While it is easy to make fun of this sort of music, Karunesh generally delivers high quality stuff, including this track built around a passionate and enigmatic Hindi lyric and some superb violin playing.
TM Soundarrajan
Paravaigal Palavitham (Film: Iruvar Ullam)
The voice of MGR and Sivaji Ganesan for most of their careers, TM Soundarrajan or simply TMS gives an upbeat performance in the 1963 film Iruvar Ullam. The lighthearted song opens the film with TMS’s airy tenor (which is every bit as polished as the north’s Rafi sahib), creating the perfect mood for what appears to be a romantic comedy-cum-love triangle melodrama set in a fast modernising India. This melody and TMS’s "wowowos" will have you humming all week.
Shlipa Ray
Burning Bride
You'll be lucky when she runs
Out of desire
Sunshine when her corpse is on fire
Hard-hitting lyrics and gutsy singing are the trademark of Bengali-New Yorker Shlipa Ray. Compared to everyone from the Cramps, to Australian icon Nick Cave (who has released some of her work on his own Bad Seed label), Ray’s parents did all they could to discourage her from listening to western pop music as a child. They failed miserably, obviously. Shlipa did, however, take up the harmonium, that most innocuous of desi instruments, and has transformed it into her main prop as well as a vehicle for her powerful and darkly humorous music. With its disturbing, angry lyric, this track reminds me of PJ Harvey: big themes, big deliberate, and simple arrangements, and big haunted and bewitching vocals.
Raza Khan
Nazaron Se
Using the harmonium in a more traditional setting, that of the qawwali, Raza Khan is one of the most exciting voices to come out of the subcontinent in years. A born again practising Christian from Punjab, Khan co-opts the mystical Islamic form of qawwali to express his own spiritual messages. Blessed with a voice and frenetic passion that grabs the listener by the collar and forces total submission, Raza Khan’s performances are always stunning. His CD, available through DeKulture, is a must-have for any lover of South Asian sufi music.
Sibti
Peshwar ki Ladki
How many stereotypes can you fit into one short song? Apparently a lot, if you are Sibti, a Pakistani band who claim to make music that will make you swoon. We end this playlist with a spoof of Pathan male culture replete with bad Urdu, charas cigarettes and male lady dancers (hence, Peshawar ka ladki). Watch it here. What is the point of music if it doesn’t make you smile?
