July Maadham Vandhaal - Get grooving!

This song is just sheer joy. A throwback to ARRs good old early days as a composer where he used to churn out one hit after another along with effortlessly touching upon a multitude of genres. This particular movie Puthiya Mugam didn't fetch the requisite rewards due to being a dampener at the silver screen but the entire soundtrack is curated with exceptionally decorated gems. 

The bits of music that are consecrated across this particular composition is simply pure delight. You just feel like dancing with ecstasy every time the guitar tugs the heart strings with it's superlative phrases. The ample feel good factor is evident across the entire piece.

The song also captures Colombo City in it's mighty glory. My formative years were spent in this beautiful country of Sri Lanka and seeing depictions of Galface, Taj Samudra, BMICH, Independence Square, Buddha Temple etc. bring back fond memories. 

It's the interlude which really blows away in this song with the guitar showcasing it's mastery. The guitar also doubles up as a call & response technique and the riveting interlude portion is an absolute feast. Also not to mention SPB's flawless rendition giving it the much desired zeal. 

I tried attempting a bit of the interlude followed by the charanam and pallavi on the veena. First time trying out the 3rd string to capture the bass element.  Just hope I've been able to capture a miniscule bit of the magic this song is laced upon in all it's vigor.

Thoongatha Vizhigal - Raunchy & Mesmerizing Amruthavarshini

This one's a raunchy number set to Amrithavarshini Ragam. The song zips through in a rapturous rapid motion and keeps gathering momentum continuously. The interludes especially undergo a full monty prancing from one end of the horizon to the other and all of it happens within the blink of an eyelid.

The soundtrack as a whole is as divergent as it gets exploring and fusing varying genres and producing a tremendous sound output with each of the tunes also being musically enriching. They are at a faster tempo than usual and most of the numbers especially possess the ammunition of being ready made foot tapping chart busters.

I tried undertaking an attempt at the charanam division of Thoongatha Vizhigal and as you can invariably see the pace just keeps gathering inch by inch and jostles up suddenly where you would note Janaki Amma monarching her way towards unheralded territories touching the zenith before humbly coming back down to earth. It was pretty difficult to tackle those parts as the speed was a bit too yonder for my own inability. Anyways tried my level best within the limited capacity to march up to the frenetic turbo movement to stay in sync and not lose track. Hope the end result wasn't way too off the mark 🙂.

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This one's a raunchy number set to Amrithavarshini Ragam. The song zips through in a raptourous rapid motion and keeps gathering momentum continously. The interludes especially undergo a full monty prancing from one end of the horizon to the other and all of it happens within the blink of an eyelid. The soundtrack as a whole is as divergent as it gets exploring and fusing varying genres and producing a tremendous sound output with each of the tunes also being musically enriching. They are at a faster tempo than usual and most of the numbers especially possess the ammunition of being ready made foot tapping chartbusters. I tried undertaking an attempt at the charanam division of Thoongatha Vizhigal and as you can invariably see the pace just keeps gathering inch by inch and jostles up suddenly where you would note Janaki Amma monarching her way towards unheralded territories touching the zenith before humbly coming back down to earth. It was pretty difficult to tackle those parts as the speed was a bit too yonder for my own inability. Anyways tried my level best within the limited capacity to march up to the frenetic turbo movement to stay in sync and not lose track. Hope the end result wasn't way too off the mark 🙂. #song #music #Amrithavarshini #rain #IR #Maniratnam #Thoongathavizhigal #agninakshatram #1988

A post shared by Rajiv Shankar (@rajiv_revel) on Apr 24, 2020 at 7:10am PDT

The best soundtrack from the Mani Ratnam - Ilayaraja duo!

Ah! This is an extremely hard proposition to nail down. It's almost like asking a mom to select the best of her kids. However zeroing on the options at hand, it's really hard to pick as each of the soundtracks had something or other going for them.

But narrowing down deeper, if I would have to select one album that truly defines the Mani-IR combo or even Tamizh cinema as a whole, I would have to go with Agni Natchathiram. The compositions were light years ahead of it's times and packed a punch by being way too uber cool.

The usage of drum kits came to the forefront with this album. The hep hipster version of Ninukori took the country by storm. It almost felt absurd to completely makeover an out and out carnatic composition in an all together new avatar but the result obtained was stupendous. The intro number Rajathi Raja was a trailblazer and Oru Poongavanam is a song which will make you float in air. Rojapoo Adivandhadhu was a monstrous composition with the bass bazooking from all sides and of course the seductive Thoongatha Vizhugal in Amrutha Varshini ragam is another scorching number.

The close competitors for this album include Mouna Ragam, Nayagan, Thalapathi, Anjali and even the rather supposedly tame Pagal Nilavu and Idhaya Kovil which had very nice melodies as well as some foot tapping songs.

But for sheer versatility and dexterity, my unanimous vote goes to Agni Natchathiram, a revolutionary soundtrack for the ages. It still retains the impact and kick and that is likely to stay on forever.