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Nothing But Wind - Illayaraja Reviews

Simply the best
Mar 09, 2006 03:05 AM 7055 Views

Soul-stirring music that will haunt you for days and make you listen to it time and again.


When I first listened to this music, I was not aware of what lies ahead of me. Before listening to this music, Illayaraja was ONE of my best music directors. I used to listen to Techno instrumental music like Enigma, Dreamland, etc. I also used to listen to Hindi Film music. But after listening to this fantastic album, I have deleted all songs in my IPOD and loaded it with Illayaraja songs. I feel I missed something till date by not listening to his songs often. Music is music if it comes from a maestro like Illayaraja.


Just listen to this album with the lights off and an earphone. Close your eyes and surrender yourself to Illayaraja as he takes you on a long journey. You will start imagining all the best and worst incidents of your life. The music will alter from happy to sad to anger and so on. In fact, it will raise all the nine possible emotions in you. At one point the music was so soul-stirring that I felt like crying and the very next minute I was over-joyed. That is the profound effect this music has on you.


The title track ''Nothing but wind'' tries to tell you a story through music alone. When the music started, I felt like a baby has taken birth and its playing with nature. The chirping of birds and the ''childish'' music clearly bring the picture of a small child playing. Suddenly a soul-stirring violing starts and makes you realize that play time is over. Its for some serious stuff now. You can imagine the child has grown-up and doing more serious things in life. You can hear chants denoting that the child, now a man, got married. Then you hear war-like sounds that denote that the man has joined the army and fighting a war. The music ends on a sad note denoting that the soldier died in the war. Well, that was the story that came to my mind when I listened to this music. I am sure you will imagine your own story when you listen to the track. My point basically is that, the music is so inspiring and effective that it speaks to you and make you realize that life is full of ups and downs.


The track ''Song of soul'' is aptly named. Its stirs your soul like a grinder grinds carrots. The music is so haunting that it keeps following you in a subtle part of your mind.


I work in USA and I played this music to my American colleagues and they were bowled over. That is the effect pure good music has on people. It has no boundaries.


Nothing but bliss
Jan 25, 2006 12:19 PM 14954 Views

CAUTION: IF YOU THINK DHOOM MACHALE IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORK OF MUSIC ON EARTH, PLEASE, THIS ALBUM IS NOT FOR YOU! I don't want to offend anybody and I don't have anything against the song, the movie or Pritam. But frankly, if your ears are not receptive to music without dhamaka beats, you will doze off halfway through the first track of this album. Why do I say this? To understand, you need to know the theme and overall texture of music in this album. Firstly, there are no vocals in any of the tracks, it's purely instrumental. If that puts you off, I've got more coming. This is an experiment in combining Hindustani melody with Western harmony. So you have Hariprasad Chaurasia developing raags on his flute to the accompaniment of scores of violins in the great tradition of late Western maestros like Mozart. If the prospect of Hindustani and Western classical playing simultaneously doesn't intimidate you, then proceed and treat your ears to a unique musical phenomenon that no Indian film music director before Illayaraja attempted. Today, AR Rahman has demonstrated sufficiently well how inspiring Indian melody combined with Western orchestratorial granduer can create stunning music, but Illayaraja's feat had no precedent in its time; he was a true pioneer (after the Thiruvasagam effort, I should say, still is). Not only that, the album is what is referred to as advanced music - one cannot expect catchy tunes and computerised special effects here; the music is more serious and you have to patiently follow the movements and patterns and observe IR's genius in developing each theme brilliantly. Coming to the individual tracks, the first track begins with a sombre violin passage which is developed to give way to Hariprasad Chaurasia's flutework. This develops into a sort of dialogue between Hariprasad Chaurasia and the violin ensemble - the former speaking sa re ga ma and the latter replying with do re mi. Then at the height of the dialogue, IR introduces drums to demonstrate how classical music - Indian and Western - lend themselves beautifully to the requirements of light music. He steers back to the initial flute theme and repeats a dialogue to finally end on a grand note with booming violins. The second track, Sureshkumar informs me, is a tribute to Mozart. I don't know which Mozart composition gave the inspiration (inspiration in its true sense, not as a euphemism for plagiarism) for this track. But Mozart's lively tempos and patterns have undoubtedly influenced ( remember 1st movement ringtone in your mobile phone, popularised by Salil Choudhry's hit Itna na mujhko tu pyaara lage ) this track. The tempo somehow reminds me of a woodcutter rhythmically putting the axe to the tree. This tempo allows IR to introduce a folk flavour in Chaurasia's flutework. Again, the jugalbandi pattern is employed. Then comes the high point of the track, infact of the album. IR simply lets go with a soul-stirring mournful violin passage that tugs at your heart which is followed by a pure North Indian folk passage by Chaurasia. How can IR compose North Indian folk music? He has! He gently steers the track back to the Mozartian theme with a frenzied solo violin giving the direction to the end of the track. The third track is completely removed from the first two. It is pure soul therapy. There is very limited use of violins in this track. A gentle shuffle beat is employed to a keyboard - guitar accompaniment. Chaurasia brings out why the flute is everyone's beloved instrument; he transports you to another world with simple, but soul-stirring passages. In the middle, there is a guitar passage followed by a chorus passage. One drawback of the track is that IR has repeated the entire theme, movement by movement, without variations, twice. But that doesn't really matter in the end, as you want Chaurasia to go on and on. The fourth track is really a demonstration of how Indian and Western classical music are adapted to Indian film music orchestration. This is the longest track in the album extending to almost 20 minutes. Chaurasia starts off on a pure classical note and develops raag Indolam (that's the Carnatic name, I'm not sure if I've got it right, KN Murli, wherever you are, help me out with this one!). Then IR introduces a bass guitar accompaniment that IR fans like me are very familar with. He then slants all the notes to change the raag - a typical IR touch. Then, bang in the middle of the track, the metallic sound of techno guitar with accompanying drums hits you out of the blue. Before you say, '' Whatever is IR upto?'' Chaurasia takes over. The drums are then withdrawn and IR gradually returns to the original theme of the track to conclude. The fifth track is the musical interpretation of the title of the album. It's a demonstration of how music oirginates from sounds made by the wind when it comes into contact with different objects. The track is quite playful with bird and aeroplane sounds. This track is basically IR's way of saying that music is nothing but wind. To conclude, I am not at all well-versed in classical music, so this was a tortorous review to write. I hope the torture is erased from my memory with your responses. Comments awaited!


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