Journey to Mars composed by Karl Marx

Blade Runner Opening Titles Experimentation by Karl Marx

LADAKH composed by Karl Marx

Cinematic Love composed by Karl Marx

Enigmatic Dreams composed by Karl Marx

MY THOUGHTS ON SATYAN MAHALINGAM’S DEBUT VENTURE VIZHITHIRU

My thoughts on Satyan Mahalingam’s debut venture Vizhithiru

1) Stay Awake

Singers: C Sathya, Satyan Mahalingam, SS Thaman, Tha Prophecy and Sharmila

Lyrics: Subramaniam Nandi, Tha Prophecy

The album starts off with the energetic “Stay Awake”. When the song started I felt, “Oh why this vocoded vocals??? Is this going to be a standard template song?”

I was proved wrong with the clever mix of mridangam with a nice techno rhythm with a not so overpowering neat electric guitar base in the song. Amidst the eurogate kind of sequence in the background, around 0.53 minutes, emerges a sparkling retro sounding track with an appealing beat filled with nice FX effects. I could visualize a nice space voyage kind of setup. The singers deserve a special mention with an interesting mix of C Sathya,Satyan Mahalingam,SS Thaman and the Toronto based Rajeevan Sathyaseelan better known as Tha Prophecy. The female singer brings in a subtle dimension to the song. The electric guitar around 1.50 is neat. The kid’s vocal around 3.10 was unexpected. An energetic start to the album.

2) Vellai Irave

Singers: GV Prakash, Ramya NSK

Lyrics: Dhamayandhi, Tha Prophecy

This song could be easily misunderstood as a Harris Jeyaraj number. With an eclectic mix of soothing guitar strums and breezy vocals, this number is very pleasant to listen. An apt choice of singers makes this song an aural pleasure. The beats are also not heavy and sound melodic. The jazzy romantic saxophone in the first interlude is a stunner. G.V.Prakash starts off in a spectacular fashion. The bass drop has been used to nice effect without affecting the song. Sounds western but addictive. Short and Sweet …

3)Paparappa

Singers: Priyadharshini, T Rajendar

Lyrics: T Rajendar

The album gets a kuthu touch through the ever versatile T Rajendar. It is an outright kuthu number interwoven with a powerful trumpet section and not to forget the tapping beat section.  The track somehow sounds déjà vu reminding a few earlier numbers. The composer however elevates with nice atmospheric pads in the background in the appropriate places.

4)Aazhi Alai (F)

Singer: Vaikom Vijayalakshmi

Lyrics: Satyan Mahalingam

Vaikom Vijayalakshmi brings tears with her affirmative vocals. A soul wrenching number that has all in it to stand amidst the times to come. The composer surprises with this superior composition that has all the elements in right proportions. The lyrics deserve applause as it forms the backbone of this song. The composer shows his mettle here that he can pen the lyrics as well. The clarinet/oboe, woodwinds, strings and harp section in the prelude just overflows with emotion. The string section and the entire arrangement deserve a special mention. The string section easily belongs to the top league like you hear in the compositions of A.R.Rahman and Yuvan Shankar. It is more Yuvan here..  A standout number…Hats off..

5) Pon Vidhi

Singers: Santhosh Narayanan

Lyrics: Subramaniam Nandi

Santhosh Narayan sounds more funky than in his own compositions. This song easily belongs to the 80’s. It is a very innovative number with a great arrangement. Arrangement??? This belongs to the acappella genre with only the singers using their voices to emulate the instruments. A casual listener will easily be fooled by the sound design of the song. It appears and pretends to have a nice beat section with lots of finger snaps, choir pad and bass section. But all are only voices which gives us a intoxicating effect all together. Other composers!!!!!!!! Beware!!!!

6) Aazhi Alai (M)

Singers: Alphonse

Lyrics: Satyan Mahalingam

The same song again makes an appearance but this time with singer Alphonse. The singer infuses a different feel to this song. It is a very difficult song to sing. Very effective.

7) Kolai Vaall

Singers: Sri Charan, Sunandhan, Vijay Antony

Lyrics: Paavendar Bharathidasan, Satyan Mahalingam

The album ends off with another energetic number sung by Sri Charan,Sunandhan and Vijay Antony. It starts off with a nice hip hop rhythm pattern filled with saw pad punches. The rap section and the super saw along with the string sections takes us back to the eighties. The laser kicks along with effective bass arpeggios and the string runs are very nostalgic. This song has been programmed well. It brings back some of the nostalgic early 90’s sound which is very effective. I never knew Vijay Antony could sing this well.

A very interesting debut by the composer Satyan Mahalingam. 

Kudos for giving us a neat album. Wish to hear more diverse arrangements in his future projects.

TIDE - A dream come true!!!

TIDE

I always wondered how one would compose for a movie. Will the dreamy landscapes and the scope it offers to a composer bring the best out of him? Or.....block the natural thought process that flows from his mind and restrict him to the script? 

It works either ways. Sometimes, a challenging script brings the best out of a musician. Inspired by my online friends like Girish Nair, Sunil Malhotra and professionals like Michael Daniels and silverlight2004db, I decided to work on a concept. I always dreamt of creating a sound scape similar to The Bounty. Its a dream. It will be a sin if I say I would like to compose something like Vangelis..Vangelis will kill me...I would not even qualify to utter his name...

But we can always experiment. Now I am going to explain about the numbers how I managed to compose for this album. Since it was based on sea and ocean, I had named it as TIDE.

1. MAIN TITLES

This was composed depicting a sailor's experience on high seas. I am a hardcore fan of Vangelis. I always wanted to create something on the lines of "The Bounty". The beats, CS80V Brass and the ambience were constructed keeping in mind the Closing Titles of the Bounty. The melody line and the orchestration are original but was designed to sound like 80's classic Vangelis number.

2. THE DUEL

A sailor's life is not complete without a duel. This was composed as an orchestral piece with thumping percussion, horn section and a strong string section.

3. DISCOVERY

This one has a nice ambience. Amidst the roaring sea waves, the sailor is lost and he tries to regain his senses, searching for a way out. Like the seeping light in the dark tunnel, he at last finds a distant land..Sea gulls and fauna fill the air.

4. LIGHTNING STRIKES

This was composed as a thrilling orchestral piece depicting a situation where the sailor sets his oars across the ocean against the backdrop of a violent storm and lightning unaware of the impending danger.

5. THE TIDE

When I started composing Main Titles, I also planned to compose an orchestral version of the same with glaring horns and string section. I thoroughly enjoyed this particular piece because of the impact of Edirol Strings. It really sounded like a cheap real symphony orchestra.

6. ROBOTS BLABBER

This was my dream track which was an odd man out from this album. This was conceptualized some 4 to 5 months back when I thought of composing something I hadn't done before. (i.e) using a vocoder/ speech synthesizer. Had to admit that the legendary Kraftwerk was an inspiration behind this track. The inspiration stops at using computerized voices. Rest of the concept is original. It has its own share of funky drum loops with a nice mix of FL Studio's speech synthesizer voices.The bass also plays a good role in this number. This one took me 2 months to finalize. Initially it was planned out with  a different tune, then I tried to sing and process it like a vocoder voice and then top it with electronic score. Then I finally programmed everything in FL Studio. I had not even touched my keyboard for this number.

I hope you all will enjoy. Feedback most welcome. Next will meet with a dreamy spacey soundtrack...