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The music album ‘Oru Nal’ has a couple of firsts to its credit. It introduces singer Vidhu Pratap as a composer and also marks the playback debut of Ranjini Haridas who set her own standards in television anchoring as the host of a long running music reality show. Yet, the album is most likely to be remembered for featuring one of the last poems to be penned by the late Girish Puthencherry.
‘Oru Nal’, released in the city by Speaker G Karthikeyan on August 12, is directed by upcoming cinematographer Prahlad Gopakumar. As a fresh post graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Prahlad had arrived at the idea of a unique music/video album back in the late 2000s.
“It was the winter of 2009 and we approached Puthencherry Sir through our friend and music director Biji Bal,” remembers Prahlad. “He agreed to write one song for the album though his health was failing by then. Before the year was out, he penned a piece that read more like a poem than the lyrics of an album song. It began with the line, ‘Marakkam marumozhi pattumayi parakkam’ and went on speak of death from a philosophical point of view. We were a little confused by the graveness of the lines. In February 2010, he passed away. It came as a shock and we wanted to retain the poem the way he had possibly conceived it, subtle and devoid of bellowing music. We were more than happy when Vidhu Pratap wanted to take up the responsibility of composing the tune.”
The singer eventually informed that he wanted to do it as a dedication to the poet. Prahlad adds that Vidhu did full justice to the lines with a soul-stirring melody and heart-warming rendition.
Being a cinematographer by profession, the scope for stop motion animation in a song composed by Manu Ramesh caught Prahlad’s fancy.
“The music was to supplement a video that depicted the life of IT professionals. And it had this compelling sound that evoked images of a mechanical life. I thought stop motion will suit the song quite well,” he says. The animation technique is arguably used for the first time in any Malayalam album. Ranjini Haridas and Jassie Gift were chosen to croon the song as ‘their voices seemed to suit the concept”.
The album also features a song sung by Benny Dayal and classical vocalist Uma and composed by a now defunct band from the city. There is also a fast number, ‘Vegam…’ rendered, quite amusingly, by Carnatic singer Sankaran Naboothiri. Among the other singers who have lent voice for the album are Swetha Mohan, T Sreeram and Jyotsna. Bijibal and Afzal K M have also scored music and lyricists include veterans like S Rameshan Nair and Chunakkara Ramankutty.
Prahlad has worked as cinematographer for documentaries and is hoping to make his debut as an independent film maker in the future. The album has been produced by Sandeep E, managing director of Zinc n Rock group.
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