Music Review – Coke Studio Season 3 Episode 2

Episode 2 titled Will opened with an Urdu version of Khaled‘s classic Aicha. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa fame Amanat Ali got a well-deserved opening on the show, and made good his debut with a soulful rendition (though nobody can quite replace Khaled’s brilliance!). The lounge-ish orchestration adhered to the Khaled version for most part. A good cover all in all. Song no. 2 was a poem by Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai called Moomal Rano (or is it Momal Rano?). Wiki tells me Momal Rano is a tragic love story like Heer Ranjha. Fakir Juman Shah and his four-men Sufi ensemble rendered this song. The song has a beautiful old-worldly feel to it, right from the raw voices to the mostly traditional instruments backing the vocals. Even the video is very quaint, five singers fervidly strumming on their tanpuras. And in a trance-like manner the song gains speed as it progresses. Very addictive track!
Two sterling performers from Season 2, Noori and Zeb & Haniya, came together on the next song written by Noori’s Ali Hamza, which was called Tann Dolay. And once again they produced a super number! This one stands out for the vocal excellence of the four singers complementing each other so well. The arrangement was spot on as usual. Lahore-based rock band Entity Paradigm debuted on Coke Studio with Song No. 4 which was a cover of Sajjad Ali‘s 1993 track Bolo Bolo. The cover pretty much followed the original in its arrangement, just raising the tempo a bit. But I would rate this version below Sajjad Ali’s, the vocals not quite upto the mark I felt. One more reason is the guitar solo which formed the second interlude of the original song being done away with. Bringing up the rear were Rizwan and Muazzam, qawwali singing brothers who are nephews of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with a song originally sung by their uncle, Naina De Akhay. The duo sounded almost like the maestro with their powerful rendition, especially in the sargam portions which they delivered with mind-boggling speed and accuracy.
Another episode, and another set of wonderful tracks. I look forward to the July 4 episode. And totally in awe of Noori and Zeb & Haniya’s consistency!  You can download the songs here.
Music Aloud Rating: 8.5/10
Recommended Tracks: The only track I didn’t find that upto the mark was Bolo Bolo. Can’t really pick a top 3 from the rest! 🙂