Posts Tagged ‘Clinton Cerejo’

After being left in anticipation for what’s to come following Thursday’s Peekaboo performance, the moment arrived when Karsh Kale delivered his offerings for Coke Studio. My word, we are still struggling to pick up our jaws up off of the floor.

For those that are hearing the name Karsh Kale for the first time, the musician, producer and composer was raised in West Bromwich, England and now resides in Brooklyn, New York. With six solo albums under his discography, he can be best known for one of the seven members of Tabla Beat Science who contributed to quite possibly, one of the greatest Asian Fusion Underground albums ever: Tabla Matrix. Himself a percussionist with emphasis on his love for the tabla and electric tabla, Kale has really pioneered the Electronic fusion with South Asian influence so supremely well and spearheaded the Asian Fusion scene for the past decade.

Now into the sixth episode of Coke Studio @ MTV S2, it would take some feat to better such exemplary efforts from the likes of Nitin Sawhney, Ehsaan + Loy, Clinton Cerejo, Amit Trivedi and Hitesh Sonik but we’re fairly sure, this is the pinnacle of the season so far. Implementing his Asian Underground influence within each performance, it was pretty hard not to showcase each and every offering within the episode.

Karsh Kale feat Salim Merchant + Sabir Khan – Kajar Bin Kare

Paying homage to the late, great, supreme sarangi musician and vocalist Ustad Sultan Khan, Karsh Kale delivers something quite unique and impeccable that has simply left us in awe. Originally composed with Ust. Sultan Khan, Salim Merchant and Kale felt that the Coke Studio platform was the perfect method to deliver such a spine tingling performance and fittingly, Ust. Sultan Khan’s son Sabir Khan takes centrestage to deliver such a beautiful, emotional and spellbinding performance via the sarangi. Arranged to perfection, the double-time snares, rousing tabla percussion and breathtaking strings really lift this emotional number to a place that leaves one almost speechless. One of, if not, the best performance ever seen on Coke Studio by a long shot respectably leaving something behind that Ust. Sultan Khan would be proud of.

Karsh Kale feat Shilpa Rao + Warren Mendosa – Hallelujah

Mixing elements of personal experiences into the Leonard Cohen classic Hallelujah, Karsh takes the helm to vocal the arrangement alongside songstress Shilpa Rao who infuses elements of Jhoola, a childhood song of hers to enhance this relatable song about pain and glory of love. Keeping the composition the same as previously heard, the track is based on Warren Mendosa’s Ode to A Sunny Day arrangement which seems to fit so well with lyrics of Hallelujah and with Mendosa delivering a splendid guitar solo, the performance is just short of breathtaking.

Karsh Kale feat Shruti Pathak, Benny Dayal + Mandeep Sethi – Glorious

Having showcased their efforts previously in the episode, Karsh enlists the talents of Benny Dayal and Mandeep Sethi once again to perform alongside multi-lingual sweet vocalist Shruti Pathak. Based on an 88 BPM drum and bass groove, the often key changing performance features sweeping flute and melodic piano pieces, we were often asking ourselves the need for incorporating Sethi on such a moving, emotional arrangement.

Karsh Kale feat Shilpa Rao, Shruti Pathak, Monali Thakur + Apeksha Dandekar – Shedding Skin

You would think trying to arrange four great female vocalists would be a feat for anybody but Kale makes lighwork of it. Incorporating the sounds of the dholak, Shredding Light is a song that talks about the transformation of a young female’s life and the smooth transitional arrangement applied seems to gel this performance so elegantly well. Focusing again around the flute, Mendosa’s raw electric guitar is fluttered throughout with the four vocalists providing angelic, stellar performances.

Karsh Kale feat Monali Thakur – Dil Cheez

It’s amazing how emotive the sarangi can be and Kale utilises it to perfect effect to reconstruct the classic Dil Cheez from the 1981 film Umrao Jaan. A fitting reinterpretation of the Asha Bhosle original with vocalist Monali Thakur executing her versatility by switching from Hindi to English so easily well. Karsh Kale provides an easy-to-listen-to arrangement with the sound of his tabla accompanying with Ravi Chary’s enchanting sitar.

Following from the ingenuity left behind by Clinton Cerejo from last weekend’s episode, Coke Studio @ MTV India employed the skills of trusty Hitesh Sonik, producer, musician and husband to the excellent Sunidhi Chauhan.

The song that whispered loud snare beats through our weak ear drums this weekend was delivered by the hottest sounding pair to come out of Punjab, Sultana and Jyoti Nooran. Grand-daughters of the acclaimed Sufi folk singer Bibi Nooran, the sisters tasked themselves to sing the popular Allah Hoo Da Awaza which was also sung by their Grandmother decades ago. Recently featured on the experimental and quite far-out but iconic Tung Tung Da Sound Karda, Jyoti sets the precedent on this live performance delivering an excellent shehr with her quite unique lower tone later accompanied by her sister Sultana who harmonise together so entrancingly well.

On a rock tip, the performance pivots around the drums performed by Darshan Doshi and filled in with some quite exquisite violin by Balabhaskar and flute by Paras Nath. Dramatic and so expressive, the composition matches the deep lyrics detailing the true love for the Almighty – expertly crafted and delivered by Hitesh Sonik. With this epsiode stepping it up a further notch, we’re excited what the rest of the season will hold..

Click here to watch the behind the scenes footage of the making of the performance

Conceived from the Brazilian Estúdio Coca-Cola, South Asia adopted Coke Studio as their own with Pakistan formulating their unique format headed by the supreme Rohail Hyatt and more recently MTV India from their studios in Mumbai.

Now entering their second season, MTV India ditched the services of Lesle Lewis, much to our enjoyment, and employed a more youthful spearhead in playback singer Clinton Cerejo. With episode 1 airing earlier today, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with the scores and arrangements from Cerejo and he instantly gives us the feeling that this season will eclipse the one preceding this – and probably do this very easily following the disappointing first season from Lewis.

Our ears have magnetised towards the arrangement of Chadd De as the favourite of the episode which features the uber-talented vocalist Master Saleem. What really launches this high is the emphasis around the beautiful cello, accompanied with a full string section the flowing composition by Cerejo that allows Saleem the freedom to unleash his vocal prowess throughout the ten minute gem of a performance.

It also doesn’t take a detective to realise that the presentations are performed and arranged as a production rather than our preferred live one take, one shot performance but to avoid sounding picky, keep delivering arrangements like these and we’ll not flutter another word about it!

We also have presented the performance by Sonu Kakkar and Vishal Dadlani, quite a neat little number which focuses around the Madari himself. Keep locked onto the blog as I’m sure Coke Studio India will be a regular occurrence if they continue like this…