Babamboom!

Since my confession about being a headline-junkie, I’ve been feeling a whole deal lighter about my manic-depressive attempts at getting punny/insane/impact-ful titles for my posts, regardless of whether it made any sense at all… like this one, for instance. About Kailash Kher & his band Kailasa’s new album, titled Jhoomo Re.

The first track of this aforementioned album is one that’s engineered to delight the manic-depressive and the anal-retentive alike, the rhythm’s infectious, and the lyrics, the less said the better, but then brevity has never been one of my virtues, so let me yield to my nature and say that the lyrics, whether its traditional folk as it sounds are such as will tickle you all over.

din bhar main teri bhang ragdoongi
din bhar main teri bhang ragdoongi
bhang ragdoon tera ragdoon dhatura
……
jo bach jawe main piloongi!

And they’ve used what sounds like a didgeridoo to provide a surreal sounding bass grounding that’s perfect for the lyrics, with the rest of the music backing the vocals and the mood beautifully. The rest of the songs on the album drift around, in my view, with nothing holding them together. There’s Saiyyan, which has a lovely, flowing melody that’s perfect for Kailash Kher’s vocal range but I’m unhappy with the orchestration and the music arrangement - some of the instruments simply don’t seem to belong with the mood of the song. Let me leave it to you to decide for yourself. Joban Chhalke is catchy enough, a Rajasthani sounding folk that may have sounded better without the jhankaar beats inserted seemingly at random. At the risk of sounding opinionated, Kailash Kher should probably work some more with Midival Punditz - the track Ali Ali from their album Midival Tunez is one that I always refer to when talking about excellent contemporary music - great lyrics, excellent melody and the arrangement is just right!

Overall, I’d say Jhoomo Re is a decent buy. Kailash Kher’s voice is one that’s suited for sufi, folk, qawwali sounds, and most of the tracks are one or the other of the above. I’m hoping that they’ll come up with something more imaginative, like Allah Ke Bande, which was scrumptious - and not folk!! :o)

On a personal note, this track has particular appeal for the ye olde memories it tripped: of a band named Mahadeva, of a character named Samir Khurana who went by the incredible nickname Pipi, and his personality-stamped track whose name has vanished from my RAM, but some of the lyrics that have been deeply imprinted go as follows:

Ganja nahin hawa hain,
Bhajan karne ki dawa hain,
Ganja nahin niranjan hain,
Aankhon ka jyot kaleje ka manjan hain…

Interesting eh? :o)