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This fortnight at Music World...
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Shriraam
(Ashwini Audio, Rs. 32)
THE FILM papers say shooting for this Shivaraj Kumar-starrer has just begun, and it looks <243>like the producers have decided to release the song album much ahead of the film.
You can see posters all over the city: this must also be one of those rare occasions in Kannada films when the producers have launched a campaign just to announce the release of the audio.
The music for Shriraam is by the current favourite of the Kannada industry, Gurukiran.
The album features six tracks, one of which is a repeat. The singers, with the exception of Soumya, are all from the Mumbai and Chennai film industries.
Thus we have a line-up of stars like Shankar Mahadevan, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam, Kavitha Krishnamurthy, Anuradha Sriram, and Mano.
At least one song has the lavish feel of Hindi blockbusters, thanks to the generous use of violins and dholaks.
The opening "Ella neene thaye" is a song in praise of goddess Yellamma, apparently one of those spectacular items where the entire village is dancing in celebration.
The acoustic drumming and the shehnai lift it above similar songs that just use tones from the keyboard. Shankar Mahadevan sounds suitably energetic.
In "Naanobbadandanayaka", Mano sounds indistinguishable from S.P. Balasubramanyam, who continues to inspire clones in the southern film and TV industries. "Premabaana", sung by the dulcet Suresh Wadkar and the shrill Kavitha Krishnamurthy, is full of dholak, mandolin, and violin interludes which give it a pleasant '70s (and perhaps Laxmikant-Pyarelal) feel.
Shriraam may not have anything particularly interesting to offer the discerning movie music aficionado, but it is sure to make it to the hit list.
Vachana Mallige
Lahari, Rs. 35
WHERE DID this album come from? It has been eight years since Mysore Ananthaswamy died, and this tape is making an appearance now. Is it a new compilation, something put together from recordings just unearthed?
Lahari had an answer. They said the tracks were from a film on Akka Mahadevi, begun more than two decades ago and abandoned soon thereafter. When they found the spools recently, they thought the songs could have an audience. (A more recent film, Scribbles on Akka, has music by Ilaiyaraja).
Prof. S. S. Basavanal defines the vachana as a form that lies somewhere between prose and poetry: "It may not have the free flow of prose, but it has its simplicity. It may not have the rhythm of poetry, but it has its movement." Though not written for singing, vachanas have been adapted into the singing tradition by such classical maestros as Mallikarjun Mansur, BasavarajRajguru and Sangameshwar Gurav. And then many lesser artistes have taken up these 12th century compositions to the bhaktigeete (devotional song) market, using diluted versions of ragas from the Carnatic and Hindustani traditions and drowning out the poetry with the most cliched and predictable orchestral arrangements.Vachana Mallige uses a style that can distinctly be identified as the sugama sangeeta style, with its preponderance of the flute, sitar, keyboard, guitar, and the tabla. This style can be distinguished from the bhaktigeete in the freedom it takes with raga structures, but many of its techniques, which must have appeared fresh when they were first tried out, have now hardened into clichés. The lesser sugama sangeeta artistes are caught in its dogmas.
Ananthaswamy (1932-1995) was the most famous singer-composer among those who carried forward the experiments of P. Kalinga Rao. He was responsible for the first sugama sangeeta cassette in Kannada (Nityotsava, 1977) and gave several memorable tunes that have become concert standards for bhavageete singers.
His individual stamp is obvious in Vachana Mallige. For instance, in the opening "Shivamantravenage", you hear his favourite raga Bairagi Bhairav (which he used for his popular songs "Nityotsava" and "Tanuvu ninnade, manavu ninnade"). You also hear in Ratnamala's voice the exact graces that he used in those compositions.
There are two compositions on the album that are not by Akka Mahadevi. The fourth track on Side A, "Paapiya dhana praayaschittakallade", is by Basavanna; it is in Ananthaswamy's voice. Track 5 is a song praising the past glories of India, quite of character from the rest of the poetry on the album. That surely can't be by Akka Mahadevi.Ratnamala, one of sugama sangeeta's big stars, sings all the other compositions in Vachana Mallige. Ananthaswamy's style was considered pioneering when it came to adapting contemporary Kannada poetry to music. Here he uses on Akka the same romantic musical idiom that he used on poets such as Nissar Ahmed and K.S. Narasimha Swamy.
In "Savillada, kedillada, roohillada", Akka describes her lover-god as one who is beyond death, blemish and form, and rejects mortal husbands saying, "feed them to the stove". The tune, however, is easy flowing and unmindful of her angry derision. The idiom extends to the three songs on Side B, the first of which also features a string ensemble.
The last song, "Bettadamelondu maneya maadi", uses the over-exploited raga Shivaranjani.
If you thought you had heard all of Ananthaswamy's commercially available music, Vachana Mallige comes as a surprise, but the expression here does not depart in any way from the oeuvre you are familiar with.
S.R. RAMAKRISHNA
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