Music Review — Rangoon (2017)
It’s not everyday that one comes across an album as diverse in composition style, mood and instrumental range as the Rangoon album. But then, this can’t be surprising coming from the prolific Bhardwaj — a man who remains extremely under-rated for the sheer talent in direction, production, story-writing and music that he possesses.
With my bias for Bhardwaj’s work clarified, I will move to the album, beginning with the, slightly ironic, ode to the eponymous yesteryears’ song Mere piya gaye Rangoon — ironic because it substitutes the keyword Rangoon with England, and well, piya with miyan. Rendered in the playful voice of Rekha Bhardwaj, ‘Mere miyan gaye England’ has Gulzar doing his usual eclectic writing peppering the female’s teasing lament on her miyan’s departure to England with references to Hitler and Churchill (the movie is set in WWII).
Continuing with the hinglish lyrics is ‘Bloody Hell’ with an ear-gasmic tapping guitar riff complementing Sunidhi’s effortless delivery. Another Gulzar trademark in the lyrics is the elements of surrealism
‘usne do aankhon se naam liya mera angrezi mein…’
‘udd jaata tha kahi kahi, aasmaan pe leke zameen’
— reminds you of the man who wrote ‘aasmaa ke sire khul gaye hain zameen se’ in Bunty aur Babli.
The love ballad ‘Yeh ishq hai’ comes in two renditions. Arijit’s soulful delivery is a hopeful tribute to love, while Rekha’s version has a dash of pathos with the notes and the chorus more melancholic. The latter also presents a qawwal foil to Arijit’s sufi rendition. Gulzar doles out more gems — ‘Jaage to Tabrezi, bole to Rumi hai…’, bringing in the talked about affection between the two poets that transcended worldly barriers.
Arijit’s ‘Alvida’ has a musical quality reminiscent of O Saathi Re from Omkara. Meanwhile, ‘Julia’ is a multi-singer rhapsody with Sukhwinder’s and Kunal Ganjawala’s effervescence delightfully mashed with a choir.
We encounter another quintessential Bhardwaj in ‘Tippa’ where he brings the children’s play song to a new life, using the creaky drone of a train as the entry into the song. Bhardwaj had used this beautifully in Aao Na from Haider where the sound of shovel was woven into a dark song about death. The oscillatory beat is reflected in the alternating vocals of four singers for the song. His fascination of playing with basic sounds and age old rhymes comes back with ‘Ek dooni do’ launching with blank acoustic guitar chops.
Keeping in with the purported setting of the movie, Bhardwaj experiments with jazz tones in ‘Be still’ which is soulfully rendered by Dominique Cerejo who has quietly delivered some lovely singles over the years. Another western number on the album is ‘Shimmy Shake’ which is your regular Elvis style club song, in with the period of the plot.
The only reason I could ask for more is because somewhere all the notes look like an amalgamation of Bhardwaj’s previous works — a bit of Omkara, a dash of Saat Khoon Maaf and a touch of Haider. It is superb fare nonetheless, and one can only expect Bhardwaj’s screenplay to complement them on the screen.
Rating : 4.5 / 5
Music : Vishal Bhardwaj
Lyrics : Gulzar
