A few days ago I got the chance to listen to a brand new Tamil movie album by the young composer Mohamaad Ghibran - the OST of Uttama Villain. Now I do not normally sit and listen to any new composer's songs without a recommendation (or two) so it was quite out of character for me to seek this one out on my own. Thinking of it, there is actually a method to my madness when choosing to listen to an album at length. I do a couple of tracks at a time, chew on them for sometime before going on to the next two and so on. The more I like an album, the more time taken to move on to other tracks.
As for my opinion of the soundtrack itself, I liked it A LOT. I am still stuck in the first two tracks and am a week into the album as of today. Without going into any technical details (which I suck at), Uttama Villain made me write this relatively lengthy post to express myself. That is saying a lot given how less I have written in the past few years. Ghibran's sound took me back into the times when I was passionate about a lot of things in life that later fell off the horizon and gave way to less satisfying, more instant pastimes. How times change! Somehow I've lost a part of me yet gained another, somehow I consider myself to be in a better place today than ten years ago when life was much simpler.
Earlier this week I found myself scouring Amazon.com(not Asuvine stationers on T.P.Road) for fountain pens - that rare pleasure 90s kids got to experience during most of their schooling. There is something metaphysical about how good fresh fountain ink on paper makes me feel. It's going to set my wallet back by a lot more than how much dad paid in the 90s, but I can't wait to turn back the clocks on this one.
We sprung forward this weekend, another one of those weird things we get to experience by living abroad. I've been through it for six long years now. Every year passes by and I cheat myself into thinking there's one more hour of sunlight. Every hour passes by and I cheat myself into thinking home is only but another spring away. Ogden Nash put it best; I'm stuck in a vicious circle.
It is amazing what a moment of peace and good music can do. I remember the times when an A.R. Rahman album was some sort of a celebration, our ticket to paradise for at least a couple of days. Roja was a bolt out of nowhere, Indira a lost album we are still learning to appreciate. May Maadham was the rarest of the rare gems which rings in our ears to date. For some reason it reminds me of a BPL TV and summer vacations in Madras, not that I'm complaining. Of late I find myself trying to understand the direction of the man's music, and its differently satisfying instant-coffee approach. I do not know if that's a good or bad thing, not as yet.
Rahman visits our city in June this year for a concert. Predictably, I queued up and bought pre-sale tickets. Logic says he opts for the grandiose/contemporary over the simple/classic. The heart says do a damn throwback and give us veterans something to cheer about. All this gibberish and head scratching makes me think that I'm now where all Ilayaraaja fans were 25 years ago.... lost.
As I yearn to re-live how good uplifting music made me feel, my search ends at Ghibran... for now.
As for my opinion of the soundtrack itself, I liked it A LOT. I am still stuck in the first two tracks and am a week into the album as of today. Without going into any technical details (which I suck at), Uttama Villain made me write this relatively lengthy post to express myself. That is saying a lot given how less I have written in the past few years. Ghibran's sound took me back into the times when I was passionate about a lot of things in life that later fell off the horizon and gave way to less satisfying, more instant pastimes. How times change! Somehow I've lost a part of me yet gained another, somehow I consider myself to be in a better place today than ten years ago when life was much simpler.
Earlier this week I found myself scouring Amazon.com(not Asuvine stationers on T.P.Road) for fountain pens - that rare pleasure 90s kids got to experience during most of their schooling. There is something metaphysical about how good fresh fountain ink on paper makes me feel. It's going to set my wallet back by a lot more than how much dad paid in the 90s, but I can't wait to turn back the clocks on this one.
We sprung forward this weekend, another one of those weird things we get to experience by living abroad. I've been through it for six long years now. Every year passes by and I cheat myself into thinking there's one more hour of sunlight. Every hour passes by and I cheat myself into thinking home is only but another spring away. Ogden Nash put it best; I'm stuck in a vicious circle.
It is amazing what a moment of peace and good music can do. I remember the times when an A.R. Rahman album was some sort of a celebration, our ticket to paradise for at least a couple of days. Roja was a bolt out of nowhere, Indira a lost album we are still learning to appreciate. May Maadham was the rarest of the rare gems which rings in our ears to date. For some reason it reminds me of a BPL TV and summer vacations in Madras, not that I'm complaining. Of late I find myself trying to understand the direction of the man's music, and its differently satisfying instant-coffee approach. I do not know if that's a good or bad thing, not as yet.
Rahman visits our city in June this year for a concert. Predictably, I queued up and bought pre-sale tickets. Logic says he opts for the grandiose/contemporary over the simple/classic. The heart says do a damn throwback and give us veterans something to cheer about. All this gibberish and head scratching makes me think that I'm now where all Ilayaraaja fans were 25 years ago.... lost.
As I yearn to re-live how good uplifting music made me feel, my search ends at Ghibran... for now.
