AUDIO SCAN
Variety show
Traffic Signal (Sony BMG)

AS sheer range goes, this album has quite a bit of variety to boast of. Although it also includes some popular songs already heard earlier, it has some wonderful originals too. About the latter category first. Na jis din teri meri baat hoti hai floors you in the voice of Kunal Ganjawala and Yogita Pathak. As if that is not hummable enough, the other version done by Bhupinder Singh is even better.

Kailash Kher sings two songs here, both of which he has penned himself. The music of these has also been composed by him, in the company of Paresh and Naresh. Both of these, Dilruba and Albela saajan, are classical based.

The most haunting song is Yeh zindagi hai to kya zindagi hai rendered with lot of pathos by Hariharan and Sangeet Haldipur.

Among the riotous ones are Aai ga, in two versions by Vaishali Samant and Bhavika, and Signal Pe (Vinod Rahod, Baba Sehgal, Neerja Pandit, Raj Pandit and Navin Prabhakar).

Sameer’s lyrics have been set to music by Shamir Tandon.

The Spirit of Signal composed by Raju Singh is impressive too.

And among the songs which have already been heard in other albums are Jagjit Singh’s Haath chhute bhi to rishtey nahin chhoda karte and Din kuchh aise gujarata hai koi, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Tere bin nahin lagda and Ustad Sultan Khan and Chitra’s Piya basanti re.

Yaar Rusda (Tips)

Punjabis who made their name on the music scene in the UK have been fairly successful back home. Among them is Kebi Dhindsa, self-styled creator of a unique genre called desi bhangra. What is so unique about it is not clear. He sings exactly the way most folk singers in Punjab do. That may be a little different from the style of westernised Punjabis in the UK but there’s nothing novel for the audience back home.

Still, he has been fairly successful in stage shows around the world at places where there is adequate Punjabi population. He models his performances after Gurdas Mann and Malkit Singh while his music is influenced by Kuldip Manak and Mohammad Sidique.

Kebi had his initial training in Hindustani classical in Punjab and graduated in music from Khalsa College, Jalandhar. On migrating to the UK soon after, he focused on traditional desi funk, fusing the catchy bhangra rhythms with western instrumentation.

A track from his debut album Open Your Mind received nominations to the Birmingham Asian Songs and Dance awards and won the Best New Band title. In India, his first album was Chak Deyange.

He tends to be as close to the roots as possible. No wonder he speaks of the Punjabi anakh which teaches one to save honour at any cost. Another song is all about the typical charkha. When it comes to romantic numbers, he praises his girl in earthy terms in songs like Kudi toon kamal di and Hot mirchi. The album opens with the title song Yaar rusda and closes with a hip-hop version of the same number. Lyrics are by Kebi himself and Pawan Ghalan. In music he is assisted by Ravi Bal, Jay P. and Kuljit. — ASC