Neha Nair is making waves. Her haunting voice in ‘Thazhvaaram Thira’ is currently topping music charts. “When I first sang ‘Thazhvaaram Thira’, the music director Shaan Rahman felt my voice was too husky. However, he changed his mind after hearing the recording; he said my voice matched Hishem’s frequency in the duet. I have sung two other songs in the film,” she says.
The singer who is in her mid-twenties entered the world of playback singing with ‘Chanchalam’, a duet with Job Kurien in Shyamaprasad’s Rithu . While she has since gone on to sing in a couple of other movies such as Yakshi – Faithfully Yours , 22 Female Kottayam, Kunthaapura and more recently 5 Sundarikal and English , her kitty is not as full as most other playback singers. “I am not the kind of person who goes knocking on doors for work. Besides, I prefer working on ‘individual music’; creating original pieces.”
While ‘Salabhamaay’ in English didn’t do well in music charts, the songs in 5 Sundarikal fared better. “‘Kaana Dhooram’ in 5 Sundarikal is something I hold close to heart as that was the first time my lyrics were used in the film music industry,” says Neha.
The artiste who is part of music bands Avial and Vidwan is all excited. She will be performing with Vidwan in Brisbane, Australia. “We will be belting out some of our songs at the Woodford Folk Festival in Brisbane. The fete starts December 25 and we will be heralding the new year there.”
The songs she has created with Vidwan are rooted to the soil. “It is folk based with a slight contemporary touch. So far we have composed six songs together; we plan to do two more before releasing an album. A few of our songs are currently available on YouTube.”