This curry rocks
Saturday October 6 2007 10:58 IST
Srikanth
Devarajan, a US based software professional and an aspiring composer
decided to postpone the launch of his third album in January this year.
Devarajan felt that Padal, a collection of songs in Tamil and English
tossed in a curry of jazz and rock — could have sounded better had he
heard AR Rahman’s new album, the soundtrack of the film Jillunu oru
Kadhal, (which was released in India during the same month). “Rahman,”
he says, “is the benchmark for me. I liked Jillunu oru Kadhal for the
way he used jazz in one of the songs and wanted to rework on my album.
I can’t really match up to him when it comes to scores. But clarity in
output, Rahman’s other specialty, is what I try to achieve in my work.”
This Rahman fan has given us a genre called Curry Rock. Devarajan
was recently in Chennai, his home town, for a vacation. He is trying to
create a market for Padal. This album, he believes “will really go well
with the listeners.” “I wanted to put the album on hold, back in
January. But there was lot of money at stake and my friends convinced
me to go ahead with its launch,” says Devarajan.
The “softie techie”(a name he was given by the European and
American media after his second album H1BEES became popular there) says
that it was the lack of popularity of Indian music albums in the US,
which made him rope in people and resources for a music studio of his
own. “People in the US only knew Ravi Shankar and L Subramaniam in the
1990s. The idea of giving the Indians living in America some desi punch
came to my mind.”
It wasn’t really difficult. Devarajan understands Western classical
(he has completed musical grades from Trinity College London) and is
interested in Carnatic music. He worked out his first album, Mahakavi
featuring SP Balasubramaniam in India. And it was while looking for
“local talent” in the US, that Devarajan came across Karthick, a
guitarist and a singer who introduced the composer to other singers.
Devarajan formed a group of people “interested in music”, mostly
“H1BEES” (a name for professionals in America working on the H1B visa)
and came up with an album with the same name (with songs in Tamil,
Hindi and English) in 2005.
Curry Rock takes the flavour from its name. The electric guitar and
other masculine sounds (like the organ) from the keyboard make the
harder side — Karthick slides Carnatic rock (improvisations on an
electric guitar inspired by Carnatic ragas) on the strings. Devarajan
makes it mellow with jazz. In his albums, his bass guitarist avoids
clichés, and doesn’t compete with the electric guitar like it usually
happens in such an arrangement. Then, he uses lot of electronic effects
to go with instruments and vocals. The use of telephone rings in the
background in Engineering Markku (Padal) and its use with the guitar is
something you expect, but don’t really regret. The vocals are a mix —
of a likeable, free, eccentric indulgence, like in Padal and a fixed
careful adherence to lyrics, like in H1BEES. And there are no stretches
of music, no jugalbandis (conversation between instruments). The
musical strains are hardbound in lyrics.
Devarajan is trying to make a shift from the kind of Curry Rock in
H1BEES (youthful, crisp) to that in Padal (ostentatious, like film
music). He says he is not really keen on composing instrumentals “for
the time being”. Is Rahman the inspiration again? “No (Laughs).
I really want to start composing film music. Padal is the first step in that
direction.”
http://www.newindpress.com/sunday/sundayitems.asp?id=SEA20071006013228&eTitle=Arts&rLink=0
