Songs and musician credits at the end.
Bindu Anirudhan – the singer that the makers of June discovered through a talent hunt – proves to be quite a competent find in her delivery of Koodu Vittu written by lead lyricist Vinayak Sasikumar. The song’s theme about the protagonist’s self-discovery in a new environment could be a metaphor for the young singer’s own industry debut, in a way. Composer Ifthi and arranger Rex George present the piece in a rather light-hearted way; Sandeep Mohan’s banjo and Swetha Suresh’s whistle particularly contributing to that lightness. The singer’s second song is a duet with another debutant, Rayshad Rauf. And Melle Melle is much more imaginative and engaging fare – built on a slightly reggae-esque base, the song gets even more interesting in the instrumental passages where things get frenetic (Bonny Abraham’s oud, nice touch!) and the folk beats join in. It is perhaps owing to the central character being a girl that three of the album’s seven songs are female solos. The talented Amrutha Suresh sings Minni Minni that teems with the warmth of high school romance, albeit in a mildly heard-before way. Uyarum, my favourite among the three, is written by Anu Elizabeth Jose and sung by Gowry Lekshmi. While the singing itself is a major factor to the song’s appeal, the breezy arrangement too is well-realised, the surprise factor here is the veena, played by singer Sachin Balu (a bit miffed that he hasn’t sung anything in this movie, the guy has hardly got the kind of singing opportunities justifying his talent).
Two of my favourite current singers Anne Amie and Sooraj Santhosh come together (surprisingly, they don’t seem to have sung much together) for Aadyam Thammil. Here too there is that lingering feeling of familiarity throughout the song, but the quality of the composition and the execution mitigate that well enough. Once again the orchestration is top class (Varkey assisting Ifthi as arranger/producer here), particularly Rajesh Cherthala’s flute, Manonmani’s sarangi and the staggered use of Sandeep’s tabla/dholak. Rajesh’s flute play finds fine use in Then Kiliye as well – his solos are instrumental in conveying the tenderness of the soulful piece that is delivered commendably by Vineeth Sreenivasan. The composer himself dons the vocalist role for Maane Ponmaane – while his singing is not without flaws, it works for the quirky tone of the song. It is the song’s backdrop that yet again lends a lot of its listenability – Rithu Vysakh’s violin and Rony George’s guitar work the ones deserving special mention in this case.
One of the best things about Malayalam film music is the regular pace at which it churns out new and promising talent. With June, we have one more competent musician joining that list – Ifthi (well, technically this is not his debut given that he did one song in 2013 movie D Company, but this is his first full soundtrack).
Music Aloud Rating: 3.5/5
Top Recos: Melle Melle, Aadyam Thammil, Uyarum
Musician Credits
1) Minni minni
Lyrics – Vinayak Sasikumar
Singer – Amritha Suresh
Music produced and arranged by Rex George at Sonic Island
Guitarlele/Guitars – Liboy Praisly Kripesh
Recorder – Rajesh Cherthala
Recorded at Sonic Island (Cochin) by Rex George, Subsaid Studio (Cochin) by Rakesh Somanathan & MyStudio (Cochin) by Akshay
Mixed and Mastered by Amith Bal
2) Koodu Vittu
Lyrics – Vinayak Sasikumar
Singer – Bindu Anirudhan
Music produced and arranged by Rex George at Sonic Island
Guitars & Banjo – Sandeep Mohan
Whistle – Swetha Suresh
Vocal Harmony – Aishwarya Kumar
Recorded at Sonic Island, Cochin by Rex George
Mixed & Mastered by Shree Shankar at Muzik Ministry
3) Aadyam thammil
Lyrics – Vinayak Sasikumar
Singers – Sooraj Santhosh, Anne Amie
Programmed by Varkey
Guitars – Rony George
Tabla/Dholak – Sandeep
Flute – Rajesh Cherthala
Sarangi – Manonmani
Recorded at Sonic Island (Cochin) by Rex George, Varkey’s Station (Trivandrum) by Arun Varghese, KrishnaDigi (Chennai) by Ragesh, MyStudio (Cochin) by Sai Prakash & 20db (Chennai) by Avinash
Mixed & Mastered by Shree Shankar at Muzik Ministry
4) Melle melle
Lyrics – Manu Manjith
Singers – Rayshad Rauf, Bindu Anirudhan
Programmed by Rex George at Sonic Island
Guitars – Liboy Praisly Kripesh
Oud – Bonny Abraham
Recorded at Sonic Island (Cochin) by Rex George & Flat Earth Media (Dubai) by Sreejith
Mixed & Mastered by Shree Shankar at Muzik Ministry
5) Then kiliye
Lyrics – Vinayak Sasikumar
Singer – Vineeth Sreenivasan
Programmed by Rex George at Sonic Island
Strings – Cochin Strings
Guitars – Sujith Valiyaveetil
Flute – Rajesh Cherthala
Recorded at Sonic Island (Cochin) by Rex George, Geetham Digital Sound Studio (Cochin), Freddy’s AVG (Cochin)
Mixed & Mastered by Shree Shankar at Muzik Ministry
6) Uyarum
Lyrics – Anu Elizabeth Jose
Singer – Gowry Lekshmi
Music produced and arranged by Rex George at Sonic Island
Guitars – Sujith Valiyaveetil
Veena – Sachin Balu
Flute/Melodica – Nikhil Ram
Recorded at Sonic Island, Cochin by Rex George
Mixed & Mastered by Amith Bal
7) Maane
Lyrics – Vinayak Sasikumar
Singer – Ifthi
Music produced and arranged by Varkey
Guitars and Ukulele – Rony George
Violin – Rithu Vysakh
Recorded at Varkey’s Station, Trivandrum by Varkey & Sonic Island, Cochin by Rex George
Mixed by Rajan KS
Mastered by Amith Bal
