ravenous intensity on Indian hip-hop. So,
he began to reach out to Mumbai rappers
via Instagram to put together a series
of idiosyncratic, impossible-to-ignore
tracks that channel the city’s grime and
glitter through the voices of its toughest
children.
Funny thing, Aakash doesn’t actually
speak or understand Hindi too well,
given his long stint in foreign shores. He
found the voices that spoke to him, and
trusted them to tell their own stories.
Interestingly, even though there are
multiple voices and personalities in the
album, none of them feel like they don’t
belong. Hindi and Urdu wordplay tickles
the imagination in Khamakha. Rehta
High scrapes out the sole preoccupation
of a decided stoner - the grief is palpable
amidst all the drug-addled flexing.
Game Over is an exercise in underdog
pluck presented with scotch-smooth yet
spitfire verbiage. Darr is a firecracker
that spits in the face of fear, replacing
apprehension with rage. Wazan Hain
offers bleeding testimony for a bad world
that never changes, no matter how many
insist that "Humko shanti chahiye".
Khauf is a searing condemnation of the
terror bred by a society that demands
excellence of its inhabitants while
providing nothing to build it off. Hapless
anger, mental illness and intractable
desolation are given life in Maharya's
relentless resentment. Khauf becomes a
grotesque ode to the anxiety of merely
being alive.
Every track provides fodder for the
soul. Outrage about broken childhoods,
despair over fractured adulthoods
and aching acceptance of too much
that seems to have gone wrong. It is
a quintessential hip-hop album that
celebrates the genre by using it for its
original purpose - lay bare the plight
of the oppressed. It takes no prisoners,
shoots straight from the throat and
effortlessly becomes one of the most
luminous additions to the garden of desi
hip-hop.
My Place to
You (Easy
Wanderlings): A
band with artistic
maturity in the
vein of Easy
Wanderlings
usually finds it
hard to replicate
the sombre
delights of their debut. Simply put, once
you enchant an audience with a certain
kind of insight, it's hard for them to
relate with another layer of differently-
flavored existentialism.
But Easy Wanderlings is getting there.
In the follow up to their roll-off-the-
tongue folksy debut As Written in the
Stars, there’s a sense of deepening
conviction. As in its predecessor, My
Place To You invites the listener to curl
in and introspect. The songs are ripe
with powerful melodic arrangements
- powerful because there is abundant
restraint being exercised by a clearly
skilled ensemble. In Beneath The
Fireworks, this restrain crackles with
charm and nuance. They sandpaper out
any frills and keep the focus simmered
on creamy vocals that hint at the hurts
of adult expectation. The weight of
responsibility sits heavy, but Sanyanth
Naroth, Sharad Rao and Pratika
Gopinath sing those ineffable sorrows
into something your browbeaten soul
can take shelter in.
Madeline carries that ultimately
unnameable grief of a parent who looks
upon their child and anticipates the
disappointments that life will heap upon
them. A winnowing flute leads into
cinematic textures that give the listener
space to fall in love. The lyrics beckon
an old-world comfort, an adult’s dream
of a Sunday afternoon spent in a breezy
balcony with a book that brought you joy
when you were young.
The light lovemaking of piano and
strings is that of an old couple that has
managed to stay in love. In fact, that is
what the album’s dulcet euphonies are
most reminiscent of. It's all familiar,
brimming with the pleasure of loving
old friends and well-loved childhood
homes. Even the angst inherent in both
songs seems bearable by virtue of the
predictable-yet-desirable charm.
reviews
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
23