AUDIOSCAN
Sur Shraddha (Times Music)

There are some bhajans which have been revered and hummed for decades, if not more. This album has compiled some such bhajans but only in the tune form. The cassette, conceived and produced by Hemant Mattani, opens with all-time favourite Bada natkhat hai. Music for this and eight others has been arranged and conducted by Ashit Desai. After working as assistant music director to Jaidev, Desai had a long association with Pt Ravi Shankar as his principal vocalist and director of his orchestra.

The other offerings are Aye Maalik tere bande hum, Maili chadar and Yashomati maiya se bole Nandlala on side A and includes Jai Raghunandan Jai Siyaram, Prabhu tero naam, and Tu pyar ka sagar hai on side B. Instruments used here include flute (Rakesh Chaurasia), sitar, sarod, santoor, harmonium, pakhawaj, tabla, dholak, guitar, vibraphone and bass guitar.

As the trend of having fewer and fewer songs in films spreads, there is a change in the music scene as well. Most albums have only a few songs, while the rest are numbers from previously released films.

For instance in this cassette there are only four songs, all of which are on side A. Side B has two songs, each from Dreams and Mashukaa.

The compositions of Daboo Malik are greatly influenced by brother Anu Malik. But they are not imitations. The one to be proud of is Tum aaj mile ho mushkil se by Sunidhi Chauhan and Sujata Majumdar. It is also there in a solo version by Sabiya Khan.

Daboo himself holds the mike along with Somya Rao to croon Kuchh tum bolo na. Vinod Rahod and Vaishali Samant open the album with Teri ye bindiya. The lyrics are by Parveen Bhardwaj.

—ASC