When we told you in this ‘BMB‘ review that SEL were making a slow start to a long run this year, we didn’t think ‘D-Day‘s’ music will come on the heels of the afore mentioned soundtrack like a rejoinder to that statement. ‘D-Day’ could race ahead, backed by the film’s leverage of the score, something that the makers of ‘BMB’ have the slight advantage of, pushing their hero’s running time on screen into musical extravagance. ‘D-Day’ cannot afford that, given the film’s plot, and that’s why its music is likely to be underplayed.
Mika Singh resounds bugles in Duma Dum Mast Kalandar to launch this vehicle. Arun Ingle, Devendra Chitnis, Gaurav Gupta and Mani Mahadevan are his troop of chorus boys marching along. Nothing spectacular, a mid-song back beat (crime beat more like) is a silly insert. The jazz bits jar. But how else will you improvise something that has been covered a million times?
Alvida sung by Nikhil de Souza, Loy Mendonsa, Sukhvinder Singh (that one aberrant sound) and particularly Shruti Haasan is four distinct voices admixing in a beautiful symphony of each other’s singing space that is gently trespass and welcome.
Munnawar Masoom, Javed Ali, Shankar Mahadevan, Gaurav Gupta, Rajiv Sundaresan, Mani Mahadevan, Raman Mahadevan come together for the qawalli Murshid Khele Holi. Its superb without making a clatter for finish. If there ever was mellow in qawalli, the mid-section percussion is rightly placed to pace the high octane intensity of this number. It slows, it runs, it sprints, it soars.
The stunning poetry of Niranjan Iyengar in Ek Ghadi needed a stalwart, where Rekha Bhardwaj falls short of ‘fixing’ this song – she sings it flat, even stretched. A ghazal sartaj would know which ends to tweak. Thankfully, if there is ever a form that can be ‘personalised’ this improviso ghazal should be lent to as many singers to see what they can bring to it. Soz is missing from her version.
Rahul Ram, Siddharth Mahadevan, Alyssa Mendonsa, Thomson Andrews, Keshia Braganza, Crystal Sequeira, Leon de Souza stir up Dhuan in a choral rise. Angels & Demons for children to sway to.
Pity, some good music will play second fiddle to ‘mafia men’ of the film. In this run up to good/evil, we’re entrapped in the strange predicament of D-Day.
