To say that Clinton Cerejo has had to travel a long road to the limelight would be an understatement. A man who has been active in the industry since the ’90s, Cerejo worked with pretty much every big composer in the industry in varying capacities — vocal arranger, music producer, programmer, vocalist — before getting to composing music himself. And before he got his first solo composing project earlier this year ( Jugni ), he did the background score for a handful of movies, one of which was Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani . It was a score for which Cerejo won a Screen Award. So it isn’t really surprising that Ghosh approached Cerejo for the soundtrack to the movie’s sequel instead of his usual favourites, Vishal-Shekhar. Cerejo, incidentally, also composed the music for TE3N earlier this year, a movie which was co-produced by Ghosh.
One of the interesting things about Kahaani ’s soundtrack was that it largely belied the movie’s dominant dark mood. It is a different matter altogether that most of the songs never made it to the movie, but director Sujoy Ghosh seems to have opted for the same strategy in the sequel as well. The trailer that came out a few days back augurs a serious, edge-of-the-seat drama, whereas the soundtrack is as light-hearted as it could get.
Bollywood’s current blue-eyed boy Arijit Singh sings ‘ Mehram ’. The breezy pop format isn’t anything you aren’t particularly familiar with already, but together with the composer’s simple, hummable melody and Singh’s superlative delivery, you will find it hard not to bob your head along. And that ‘ Mehram ’ hook is definite earworm material.
Cerejo evokes the ’80s funk vibes in complementing lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya’s colourful analogy of life’s moments to the luscious Bengali sweet in ‘ Lamhon Ke Rasgulle ’. The synth-dominated arrangement is trippy (was reminded of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ at times) and the composer gets Sunidhi Chauhan and his bandmate Bianca Gomes (from the recently formed fusion band Ananthaal) to do the singing; both are known for their proficiency with such songs and deliver well.
It is in the third and final song that the composer delivers his best of the soundtrack. ‘ Aur Main Khush Hoon ’, quite fittingly for its title, carries that happy indie sound that is increasingly going mainstream thanks to a lot of indie proponents of the style finding their way into films. The melody itself is handled with finesse by Ash King, the backdrop sees guitars, ukulele (both played by Cerejo), piano, accordion and that twanging bass (upright perhaps) coming together in an incredibly cheery blend.
The soundtrack is another classy piece of work from Cerejo. One that scores lower than its predecessor in number of songs and their diversity, but not on quality. Now waiting to see how many of the songs will make it to the screen this time.
Vipin Nair writes about music on his website MusicAloud.com and curates music on Apple Music as MusicAloud
