Songs and complete musician credits at the end.
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
For the past few years, Bollywood’s hinterland based movie soundtracks have seen a domination of one name – Vishal Bhardwaj. Saand Ki Aankh sees the entry of another Vishal into that space, Vishal Mishra, accompanied by the lyricist with whom he has tasted much success, Raj Shekhar. Mishra’s first song for the album though, feels in the zone of a soundtrack a third Vishal was involved in some 11 years back – Vishal-Shekhar’s Tashan. The folk rock fusion that comprises the arrangement of Udta Teetar is heady and very well done. The arrangement here is increasingly loaded towards the Western side, with the guitar-drum combination dominating the soundscape (Kalyan Baruah, Shubham Srivastava, Rushad Mistry, Darshan Doshi all in fine form – there is even a horns section that makes its appearance) and a harmonium pretty much the only element from the other end. However, Raj Shekhar’s lines and the delivery by the singers – the powerhouses Sunidhi Chauhan and Jyoti Nooran lend balance to the fusion. Vishal Dadlani of Vishal Shekhar incidentally features as vocalist for the album’s next song, Womaniya, a word that you might remember from another movie in a similarly rural setting, Gangs of Wasseypur. While the GoW song (written by Varun Grover) was in Bhojpuri, the rebellious lines here are mostly in Hindi barring the title phrase and the Sanskrit couplet from Hanuman Chalisa that the song borrows. The orchestration here is more aligned towards Tamil kuthu music (something Pritam has adapted multiple times in the past) and therefore is heavy on percussion (Pratap Rath & Satyajeet Jamsandekar), and is entertaining despite the associated familiarity. An alternate raw version (I assume this is the track version that got promoted to the soundtrack, since there is no difference except for the vocals) sees Mishra handle the singing and really well at that.
Veteran singer Asha Bhosle gets roped in to convey the vicariousness of Aasma – while in her last recording (for Begum Jaan, nearly 1.5 years back) the age aspect was detrimental to the song, here it nicely suits the mellow, almost lullaby-ish tone of the song. A studio version – once again no different to the original aside of vocals – features the composer, and yet again he manages to display his versatility by handling this mellow track almost as deftly as he did Womaniya. Both the song’s variants feature some beautiful flute solos by Rakesh Chaurasia. Baby Gold is quite light-hearted and has some nice touches in the backdrop, but the melody isn’t particularly memorable and the song ends up the relative weakling of the album. Good delivery by Sona Mohapatra and Jyotica Tangri though. The soundtrack’s most folk sounding piece, Jhunna Jhunna (incidentally the dominant dholak rhythm here is pretty much same as GoW’s O Womaniya!), has a charming retro flavour to it – Zoheb Khan’s harmonium and Tapas Roy’s plucked strings the highlights – and is sung wonderfully by Pratibha Singh Baghel and Krutika Borkar.
Saand Ki Aankh. Composer Vishal Mishra’s first full soundtrack, and he delivers in style. And in Raj Shekhar he appears to have a steady lyrical partnership in place.
Music Aloud Rating: 3.5/5
Top Recos: Udta Teetar, Jhunna Jhunna, Aasma
Musician Credits
1- Udta Teetar (Vishal Mishra Ft. Sunidhi Chauhan & Jyoti Nooran) :
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singer : Sunidhi Chauhan & Jyoti Nooran
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music & Rhythm Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Vocal & Music Recorded at : YRF Studios(Shantanu Hudlikar) & AMV
Studio(Rahul Sharma)
Recording Assistants : Abhishek Khandelwal, Manasi Tare at Yashraj Studio
Sameer at AMV Studio
Musicians :
Guitars : Kalyan Baruah
Additonal Guitars – Shubham Srivastava
Bass : Rushad Mistry
Drums : Darshan Doshi
Saxophone : I D Rao
Trumpet : Robin Fargose
Trombone : Zameeruddin Shaikh
2- Womaniya (Vishal Mishra Ft. Vishal Dadlani)
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singers : Vishal Dadlani , Vishal Mishra
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham
Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Music Recorded at : YRF Studios(Shantanu Hudlikar) & AMV Studio( Rahul Sharma)
Recording Assistants : Abhishek Khandelwal, Manasi Tare at Yashraj Studio
Sameer at AMV Studio
Musicians :
Guitars : Warren Mendonsa
Percussion : Pratap Rath & Satyajeet Jamsandekar
Strokes : Tapas Roy
Shehnai : Durgesh Bhosle
3- Aasmaa (Vishal Mishra Ft. Asha Bhosle)
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singer : Asha Bhosle
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Music Recorded at : Yrf Studios(Shantanu Hudlikar) & VM Studio by
Shubhansh Tiwari
Vocal Recorded by : Vijay Dayal at Yrf Studios
Recording Assistants : Abhishek Khandelwal, Manasi Tare at Yashraj Studio
Musicians :
Guitars : Sanjoy Das & Ishaan Das
Flute : Rakesh Chaurasia
Tabla : Ashish Jha
4 – Baby Gold(Vishal Mishra Ft. Sona Mohapatra & Jyotika Tangri)
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singers : Sona Mohapatra & Jyotika Tangri
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham
Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Music Recorded at : YRF Studios(Shantanu Hudlikar)
Recording Assistants : Abhishek Khandelwal, Manasi Tare at Yashraj Studios
Musicians :
Guitars : Sanjoy Das
Percussion : Raju Kulkarni & Ganesh Thoras
Kazoo : Vishal Mishra
5- Jhunna( Vishal Mishra Ft. Pratibha Singh Baghel & Krutika
Borker )
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singer : Pratibha Singh Baghel & Krutika Borkar
Additional Vocals : Apurva Nisshad & Surabhi Khekale
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Vocals & Instruments Recorded by : Alok Punjani at The Islanders Studio
Musicians :
Bass : Sanjoy Das
Guitars : Sanjoy Das
Percussion : Raju Kulkarni & Jayant Pathak
Dholak : Shashikant Sharma
Charango & Mandolin : Tapas Roy
Harmonium : Zoheb Khan
6 – Womaniya (Raw Version)
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singers : Vishal Mishra
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Music Recorded at : YRF Studios(Shantanu Hudlikar) & AMV Studio( Rahul
Sharma)
Recording Assistants : Abhishek Khandelwal, Manasi Tare at Yashraj Studio
Sameer at AMV Studio
Musicians :
Guitars : Warren Mendonsa
Percussion : Pratap Rath & Satyajeet Jamsandekar
Strokes : Tapas Roy
Shehnai : Durgesh Bhosle
7 – Aasmaa (Studio Version)
Music : Vishal Mishra
Lyrics : Raj Shekhar
Singer : Vishal Mishra
Music Arranged by : Vishal Mishra & Gaurav Vaswani
Music Produced by : Gaurav Vaswani
Vocal & Music Designed by : Vishal Mishra
Music Assistant : Shubhansh Tiwari, Kumar Gaurav Singh & Shubham
Srivastava
Mixed & Mastered : Shadab Rayeen @New Edge Studios
Assistant Engg. : Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar
Music Recorded at : Yrf Studios(Shantanu Hudlikar) & VM Studio by
Shubhansh Tiwari
Vocal Recorded by : Vijay Dayal at Yrf Studios
Recording Assistants : Abhishek Khandelwal, Manasi Tare at Yashraj Studio
Musicians :
Guitars : Sanjoy Das & Ishaan Das
Flute : Rakesh Chaurasia
Tabla : Ashish Jha
