On Loop: Khoya Khoya Chand

Hastily written post, but I’ve found an earworm after such a long time. This song, I think will be my death.

Found this thanks to @aalaap, and has been on loop since. The album’s called “Classic Bollywood – Shaken not Stirred” Much trippage is happening on the “Khoya Khoya Chand“, such a stunning voice, such a stunningly dark arrangement, mystery just drips from this song. Death only.

The incredible voice is that of Suman Sridhar, wonder where she was hiding all this while? If her voice sounds familiar, it’s because she was the one who was the voice on the Kalki-Imran coke ad ( That track, Tum Jo mil gaye ho also features on this album, and is on loop)

This Tehelka article speaks about the brains behind this album:

 ”Ironically, it took an outsider to show us how a vintage gem is refreshingly burnished without stamping out its glow. The brains behind Khoya Khoya Chand is Mike McCleary, an Indian-born, Kiwi-origin and London-trained musician and composer. For someone who has had industry stalwarts for collaborators, it’s odd that he isn’t a household name by now.”

We were thinking back as to which were the other tolerable old hindi song cover, and I could only think of Bally Sagoo, who did some wonderful stuff remixing old Bollywood melodies, and made it cool. Like @aalaap pointed out, he made a bunch of cool stuff, and then when everyone jumped on the remix bandwagon, he just vanished. ‘Remixes’ that don’t mutilate the original beyond recognition are indeed hard to find.

That being said, this is not remix, this is a legit covers album, something which I feel was missing all this while.

Anyway, for the rest of the songs on the album, I haven’t got around to listening to much of it because of this song. It will be my death, I tell you. I heard Mauli Dave’s voice on “Yeh samaa“, and hated it. She just sounded too shrill for the jazz infused numbers. Monica Dogra (Shai from Dhobi Ghat), however, sounded quite alright on the “Ajeeb Dastaan hai yeh” . I quite like the way she hastens the first part of the sentence, and stretches the second part, and that strange accent seems to be gone.

Otherwise, it’s Suman Sridhar all the way. I am in love with that woman’s voice.

PS: The video is incredibly corny. Boy meets girl, they walk in slo-mo, while everyone stares at them, and then ends abruptly. I think she’ll turn out to be a vampire or zombie or such. What is interesting is that I’ve seen an indipop video after a long time. Not quite sure if it will start a trend.