There’s hardly any doubt that I look forward to most of the mainstream composers’ new work – Rahman, Vishal Shekhar, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Yuvan, Ilayaraja, Pritam, Devi Sri Prasad, Mano Murthy etc. But, there are a few newbies who’s work I look forward to, with extra anticipation, primarily because their last soundtracks were pretty good! Here’s a list of my personal choices for most interesting new musical talents.
01. Dharan (Tamil)
Dharan debuted with K Bhagyaraj’s Paarijaatham. I wasn’t particularly enamored by Paarijaatham, but Unnai kandene was definitely awesome. As a soundtrack, it was decent, but not groundbreaking. But, Dharan took my breath away with this 3 song soundtrack for Sivi, a cheap, tacky, B grade freemake of the 2004 Thai horror smash hit, Shutter, by directors, Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom. (To digress further, this director duo’s latest, Alone, has a fabulous plot for a horror/ thriller and is ripe enough to be freemade in India!). But Dharan’s music was incredible – with just three songs, he manages to impress. I’ve no idea if he has any new, decent projects – hope he does!
02. Mithoon (Hindi)
Mithoon, within a short span of time has composed some of my favorite new Hindi tracks. From Bas ek pal’s Tere bin, to two of Anwar’s mesmerizing tracks, right across some really groovy numbers in The Train and Aggar – his tunes have already bowled me. His wikipedia entry shows that he’s working on only one new project – Chashme Baddoor. If that’s the remake of one of my all time favorite classics – and with decent actors, I’m sure looking forward to what Mithoon could do too!
03. Mickey J Meyer (Telugu)
After reasonably good music in Pothe poni and 10th Class, Mickey’s talent came to fore in Notebook and more recently, in the breezy, Happy Days. His latest, Hare Ram, has at least 3 very good tracks and this Hyderabad based composer continues to show promise. He’s supposedly working on two new films, Kotha bangara lokam and Galipatam. Is Galipatam a remake of the Kannada film, Galipata, starring Ganesh? Also, Kotha bangara lokam is produced by Dil Raju, and given the way he has promoted his last projects, Mickey sure has a winner in his hands!
04. Amit Trivedi (Hindi)
His film debut in Aamir was path-breaking, without doubt. I haven’t really liked his work on the Indipop album, Om. But Aamir is reason enough to look forward to what he has in store going forward.
05. Naresh and Paresh Kamath, along with Kailash Kher (Hindi)
The Indipop albums – Kailasa and Jhoomo re were absolutely divine. I simply love the assortment of songs this duo, along with Kailash Kher, have composed between these two albums. That is one of the reasons why I found their film debut, Pranali, terribly disappointing. Perhaps working for a script is killing their creativity. I’m eagerly looking forward to their next pop album!
06. Manoj George (Kannada)
The mystery continues – is this the same Manoj George of Antaragni fame? Does anyone know? His music in the flop Kannada movie Athmiya was commendable with at least 2-3 very likeable songs. Wonder if he’s indeed working in a new project, after a flop movie and a flop soundtrack that very few Kannadigas seem to have heard of!
07. Raghu Dixit (Kannada/ Hindi)
Being adopted by top composing duo Vishal Shekhar is no mean feat! I can see why they did it – this man has talent. His self titled album did not impress me all that much, barring those two magical Kannada tracks he added in an otherwise Hindi (one English track!) pop album with great conviction and courage! Those two tracks are worth that album, by the way. His music in the Kannada film, Psycho, is very good too. His singing just about manages to get on my nerves, but there’s no doubt that given the song, he does the job amazingly well. His composing skills are in full display in this film. Lets see what he comes up with beyond these two projects.
08. Majo Joseph (Malayalam)
I’ve met Majo through a common friend and he comes across as a completely unassuming, simple guy! Frankly, I did not really like his second film, Cycle, but he was damn good in his debut, Notebook (yeah, too many notebooks around – the Telugu one, Malalayam one and Ajay Devgan’s freemake of Notebook in Hindi for this directorial debut!) – Hridayavum being the pick of the soundtrack. Lovely stuff, that one! He is supposedly working on a couple of interesting Malayalam film projects and is also keen to do an album on his own, the plans for which are underway. Looking forward to what he can come up with!
