Songs and complete musician credits at the end.
Nearly nine years after she recorded her first song with A R Rahman, singer Shilpa Rao gets a second song with the composer, a similarly upbeat piece to Ishq Shava – Phuljhadiyon (should it be just Phuljhadiyo?). While this one is upbeat, Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lines (loaded with some smart analogies) make it quite clear that it is about the pregnancy situation that forms one of the key plot devices of the movie. My favourite bits of the song happen in the interludes though, particularly the second one (the first interlude features Tanvi Shah with a Spanish cameo) that sees a surprise digression into a soulful melody with a seemingly synth-generated woodwind solo. Rakshita Suresh’s supremely assured handling of the Arabic melody is the undoubted highlight of Yaane Yaane – the song itself doesn’t impress a lot apart from that, despite a Middle Eastern-electronic fusion arrangement et al. ARR’s compositions reminding us of his older songs has been a fairly common occurrence in the composer’s recent albums. In Mimi, this is most prominently felt in Rihaayi De – the pensive track brings to mind multiple songs in the genre, and the feel is only accentuated by the composer’s own handling of the vocals. Absolutely loved the way the track ends though; an ethereal chorus singing a folkish verse that echoes across the sprawling soundscape as the song fades away. Things are kept pretty simple in the bidaai song, the album’s only other track to have a male singer in the lead – Chhoti Si Chiraiya. There is a soothing classical-based melody, and the arrangement headlined by Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Manonmani on the mohan veena and sarangi respectively.
And that leaves us with the three songs which are my current favourites from the soundtrack. Rock-a-bye Baby is a very interestingly constructed lullaby – the interspersing of Canadian singer/songwriter Julia Gartha’s English bits (written by Julia herself) with Amitabh Bhattacharya’s Hindi verse sung by Khatija Rahman works wonderfully, the segue from one to the other is made even more alluring due to the latter’s gentler rendition style. Hututu is another of the album’s tracks that carries a strong heard-before element, that opening verse is especially evocative of Tu Bin Bataye, but unlike Rihaayi, this one is a delightful listen even so, especially for Shashaa Tirupati’s spectacular vocals. Asad Khan’s sitar that has minimal presence in the top notch orchestration during the initial portions of the song, gets in on the action as it progresses into its second half, eventually closing the piece with a beautiful – and curiously muted – 30 second(ish) solo. Param Sundari is A R Rahman nailing the “mass entertainer” formula in a way that he hasn’t done in a while! Shreya Ghoshal is on fire delivering this one, but equally praiseworthy is the chorus that matches her brilliantly. Good luck getting that bass hook out of your head by the way; love it when Shreya hums it herself, towards the end. On a random aside, Amitabh Bhattacharya (who is in fine form here too – the man rarely fails with the quirky ones!) ended the song with a “ghadi ka kaanta hickory dickory dock ri”, the mind went back to the Clock Tower mystery segment of Jagga Jasoos where he used a “ghadi ka kaanta tick tock tick tock”. Random aside over.
The poster of Mimi says, “nothing like what you are expecting”. Not sure about the movie, but the soundtrack has completely lived up to this claim. Until the start of this month, most people were not even aware of such a movie coming out, let alone the involvement of A R Rahman in it. And the expectations from the soundtrack were therefore fairly low as well, but once again it has thrown up a surprise with a very diverse and engaging set of songs. More such low-profile projects please!
Music Aloud Rating: 3.5/5
Top Recos: Param Sundari, Hututu, Rock-a-bye Baby
Musician Credits
Param Sundari
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – Shreya Ghoshal
Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Additional Arrangements and Programming – Ranjit Barot
Additional Vocals – Sarthak Kalyani, Suryansh, Hriday Gattani, Nakul Abhyankar,
Pooja Tiwari, Rakshita Suresh
Guitar – Sunil Miller
Folk Voice, Morsing and Khadtal – Kutle Khan
Indian Percussion – Dipesh Varma
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran
Mixed by – Nakul Abhyankar
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
Yaane Yaane
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – Rakshita Suresh
Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Remix Arrangements – Gulraj Singh
Additional Vocals – Aditi Paul, Pooja Tiwari
Mandolin, Saz, Banjo – Tapas Roy
Flute – Kamalakar
Sunshine Orchestra, Chennai Conducted by V. J. Srinivasa Murthy
Special Thanks – Sanaa Moussa
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran
Mixed by – Mixing Team, Panchathan India
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
Phuljhadiyon
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – Shilpa Rao
Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Spanish Rap Written and Sung by – Tanvi Shah
Additional Vocals – Rakshita Suresh, Hiral Viradia, Pooja Tiwari
Additional Programming – Kumaran Sivamani
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Hriday Gattani, Karthik Sekaran
Mixed by – Mixing Team, Panchathan India
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
Hututu
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – Shashaa Tirupati
Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Guitars, Ukulele – Keba Jeremiah
Sitar – Asad Khan
FAME’S Studio Orchestra (Macedonia)
Conductors : Oleg Kontradenko
Orchestrator: Japjisingh Valecha
Orchestra & Orchestration co-ordinator: Andrew T. Mackay/Bohemia Junction Ltd
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Hriday Gattani, Karthik Sekaran
Mixed by – Mixing Team, Panchathan India
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
Rihaayi De
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – A R Rahman
Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Additional Vocals – Khatija Rahman, Hiral Viradia
Backing vocals by El Fé , Arranged by Roe Vincent Nisha Sharon
Angelin Nisha
Anuj Mathew
Rohit Sridhar
Reshwin Nishith
Flute – Kamlakar
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran
Mixed by – Mixing Team, Panchathan India
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
Choti Si Chiraiya
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – Kailash Kher
Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Mohan Veena – Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
Indian Rhythm – Sai Shravanam
Sarangi – Manonmani
Harmonium – Suryansh
Sound Engineers:
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran
Kailasa Studios, Mumbai
Franco Bhalla
Mixed by – Nakul Abhyankar
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
Rock a Bye Baby
Song Composed Produced and Arranged by A R Rahman
Singer – Julia Gartha, Khatija Rahman
Hindi Lyrics – Amitabh Bhattacharya
English Lyrics – Julia Gartha
Music Supervisor – Hiral Viradia
Musicians:
Guitars – Keba Jeremiah
Bass – Mohini Dey
Drums – Ramkumar Kanagarajan
Backing vocals by El Fé , Arranged by Roe Vincent Nisha Sharon
Angelin Nisha
Anuj Mathew
Rohit Sridhar
Reshwin Nishith
FAME’S Studio Orchestra (Macedonia)
Conductors : Oleg Kontradenko Orchestrator: Japjisingh Valecha
Orchestra & Orchestration co-ordinator: Andrew T. Mackay/Bohemia Junction Ltd
Sound Engineers
Panchathan Record inn, Chennai
Suresh Permal, Karthik Sekaran
Mixed by – Mixing Team, Panchathan India
Mastered by – Suresh Permal
