‘Minungum Minnaminunge...’ a song from Priyardarsan’s Oppam , picturised on Mohanlal and child artiste Meenakshi ( Amar Akbar Antony -fame) is climbing up the music charts. Sreya Jayadeep’s voice has created the magic yet again, after ‘Yenno Njanente’ in Amar Akbar Antony , this time with veteran M.G. Sreekumar. The song has already crossed four lakh views on YouTube. Soaring on excitement are composers of this release - Jim Jacob, Biby Mathew, Eldhose Alias and Justin James, who call themselves 4 Musics.
Natives of Mookkannur near Angamaly, it is music that has kept these childhood friends together. “We were part of the church choir and so the bond grew stronger,” says Jim. The foursome, all in their early 30s, started out with a music band, 91 BC, which got dissolved after they got busy with their career. But they couldn’t keep away from music for long and in 2007 they made an album, ‘Mazhathulli’ with 10 songs, which was not released.
However they didn’t give up. “Even though Eldhose is in Saudi Arabia and Justin is in New Zealand and two of us are here, we keep composing tracks. The breakthrough was when we got an opportunity to perform on Asianet Plus. That eventually led to our first movie, Juzt Married , directed by Sajan Johny,” says Jim who runs Noise Headquarters, an audio recording studio and academy in Kochi.
Juzt Married didn’t fare well at the box office and the songs went unnoticed. They struggled for a break till they got in touch with Antony Perumbavoor, producer of Oppam . “He said that he would suggest our names to Priyadarsan,” Jim adds.
Priyadarsan gave them three situations and they had to come up with three options for each within one week. “When he okayed the songs it took a while for us to digest that we were on board a big project. People have huge expectations about songs in a Priyadarsan movie and so we had to give our best. And when Lal sir posted on his Facebook page about ‘Minnaminunge’, we were on cloud nine,” says Biby.
The movie has three more tracks. One is a peppy song, ‘Pala naalayi’, crooned by 10 singers - seven male singers and three female singers. It starts with Hindi lyrics, written by Sharon Joseph who is also among the singers. ‘Chinnamma adi’ is a solo track by M. G. Sreekumar. “The fourth track, ‘Chirimukilum’ is not in the movie. It is our tribute to S. P. Venkatesh who formed a winning combo with Priyadarsan sir, with his songs for Kilukkam and Minnaram . We have composed it in his style, especially the tone of various instruments. People might call it a rip-off, but it was deliberate,” says Jim.
They have already signed on for a new Malayalam movie. So, do any of them plan to go solo? “Never. It is all about the group and not one person. Our advantage is that our music tastes differ and therefore we are confident about making music in any genre. Above all, there are no ego hassles,” says Biby.
