in transit

It was either last week, or the week before, that I was watching SaReGaMaPa, which is something like the Indian version of American Idol. And a boy who couldn't have been more than eleven years old got up on stage, and sang this song that I couldn't remember ever hearing before, Tujhse Naraz Nahin Zindagi. And it was the strangest thing. The host of the show started crying, one of the judges started crying. They asked the boy to sing it again, and he could only get through one verse, because by this time everyone was crying - the boy, all three of the judges, the boy's parents, the studio audience, all the people I was watching with, and, yeah, me too. (It's contagious, I swear.) It was the line he sang again - jeene ke liye, socha hi nahin, dard sambhaalne honge - to live, I didn't even think, I'd have to deal with pain. It just felt so very real.


the lyrics:

tujhse naraaz nahin zindagi

tujhse naraaz nahin zindagi hairan hun main
tere masoom sawalon se pareshaan hun main

jeene ke liye, socha hi nahin, dard sambhaalne honge
muskuraayen to, muskuraane ke, karz utaarne honge

muskuraaoon kabhi, to lagtaa hai
jaise honton pe karz rakhaa hai

tujhse naraaz nahin zindagi hairan hun main
tere masoom sawalon se pareshaan hun main


translation:

I'm not upset with you, life

I'm not upset with you, life, I'm surprised
Vexed by your simple questions

To live, I didn't even think, I'd have to deal with pain
If I smile, for smiling I'd have to pay a debt

Sometimes, when I smile, it feels like
I've weighed my lips with a debt

I'm not upset with you, life, I'm surprised
Vexed by your simple questions


Sameer - Tujhse Naraaz Nahin Zindagi

Also, a youtube link.

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While trying to find more information on Venezuela and president Hugo Chavez, I stumbled across the Venezuela analysis website, and one of the articles there reminded me of a quote from the power of nightmares documentary - that in the political environment today, the person with the most vivid imagination becomes the most powerful, because the sense of disbelief has vanished.

My favorite part: A couple of years ago, for example, senior U.S. Army analyst Graham Turbiville pointed to the purchase of 30,000 ski masks by a Ciudad del Este Lebanese businessman as evidence that terrorism was flourishing in the region. The transaction, he said, "raised many questions" -- one of which was whether Turbiville was even aware that some of the world's best skiing takes place in the nearby Andes.

Ridiculous much?

Just finished watching the BBC documentary The Century of Self. I'd heard most of the ideas before, but not all together and presented and like this. And, do you ever have moments when things just click, and stuff that had been puzzling you forever suddenly makes perfect sense? That's how I felt watching this. It's such a penetrating analysis of American and later British consumer culture, the forces and ideas that moved it, made it what it is today, of why people think like they do, and it had these moments when I was caught short, things that I'd taken for granted revealed to be mostly propaganda.

Watch this if you get the chance. The file quality & graphics aren't the best (they keep on using the same two shots of Freud over and OVER again, and there are these four or five closeups of skyscrapers that make up a quarter of the movie, set to a background of REALLY MENACING music), but I love the way it talks about ideas and how they mutated, can't recommend it highly enough for that.


These quotes are from the conclusion of the series, Eight Men Slipping Wine:

In 1939, Edward Bernays* created a vision of the future world in which the consumer was king. It was at the World's Fair in New York, and Bernays called it DemocroCity. It was one of the earliest and most dramatic portrayals of a consumer democracy, a society in which the needs and desires of the individuals were read and fulfilled by business and the free markets.

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There was this sort of notion that the free market was something that was not guided by ideologies or by political power, it was something that was simply guided by the people's will.

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But in reality, the world fair had been an elaborate piece of propaganda designed by Bernays for his clients, the giant American corporations. Privately, Bernays did not believe that true democracy could ever work. He had been profoundly influenced in this by his uncle's theories of human nature. Freud believed individuals were not driven by rational thought, but by primitive unconscious desires and feelings, and Bernays believed that this meant it was too dangerous to let the masses ever have control over their own lives. Consumerism was a way of giving people the illusion of control while allowing the responsible elite to continue managing society.

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It's not that the people are in charge but that the people's desires are in charge. The people are not in charge, the people exercise no decision-making power in this environment. So democracy is reduced from something which assumes an active citizenry to something that's now increasingly predicated on the idea of the public as passive consumers, the public as people as - essentially that what you're delivering them are doggie-treats.

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There are now growing demands that they [politicians] fulfill a grander vision, that they use the power of government to deal with the problems of growing inequality and the decaying social fabric of the country. But to do this they will have to appeal to the electorate to think outside their own self-interest and this would mean challenging the now-dominant Freudian view of human beings as selfish, instinct-driven individuals, which is a concept of human beings that has been fostered and encouraged by business because it produces ideal consumers. Although we feel we are free, in reality we have become a slave to our own desires. We have forgotten that we can be more than that, that there are other sides to human nature.

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Fundamentally we have two different views of human nature and of democracy. You have the view that people are irrational, that they are bundles of irrational emotions, that comes directly out of Freud, and businesses are very able to respond to that - that's what they have honed their skills doing, that's what marketing is about. Politics must be more than that. Politics and leadership are about engaging the public in a rational discussion and deliberation about what is best and treating people with respect in terms of their rational abilities to judge what is best.


*Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, the founding father of public relations and the main architect of modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion. He seems to have worked with every major US corporation as well as the government.


ETA: Forgot to link the torrent.

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AR Rahman move over. I think I've found someone new to put on my pedestal.

Sanjay Gupta is a strange, somewhat delusional character. He claims his movies are highly original, calls them works of art that push the envelope when in fact they're nothing more than pale knock-offs of western movies. Maybe this was why it took me so long to listen to his songs - I figured his music would be just as derivative. But, ohman. Gave the soundtrack to Zinda a listen yesterday, then Musafir, and. His stuff completely blows my mind.

There're two versions of each CD - the lounge version and the club version, and usually designations like this put me on guard, because most Indian club songs and remixes I've heard aren't very good. Indian music producers have this tendency to throw random western elements in their songs to try and make them seem hipper and cooler (MORE WID IT KAY), with the result that the whole thing sounds tacked on and stupid. But whatever the producers here are doing, more often than not it works, in such a way that it seems, at the same time, both completely natural and revolutionary, and then they do it again in the next song, and then again in the next. It's amazing.


These two songs are from the soundtrack of the movie Musafir.

Saki (Psychedelic Insomnia Mix)

Lyrics by Dev Kohli, produced by Vishal-Shekhar, sung by Sukhwinder Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan. A mix of traditional and techno and rock IN A WAY THAT WORKS. *still kind of blown by that* sakis were what they called women that served drinks in wine houses. This song has lyrics that I adore (in no small part because I'm a huge proponent of the "to love is to be at war" school of thought). This is no sappy love duet - both the man and the woman can be hard and cutting, and the atmosphere of the song reflects that.

( lyrics )

I love the beat, the guitar riffs around two and a half minutes into the song, the back and forth that immediately follows between the woman and man (ishq ke galiyon main na jana... ishq to mera khuda hai aashiq mera naam hai), especially the way the guy draws out the last syllable, his voice spiralling up. It works so well, and the only place aside from hindi songs that I've heard that done is in operas.


Rabba (Lounge Version)

Produced by Anand Raj Anand, lyrics by Dev Kohli, sung by Richa Sharma. There are traditional vocals, a steady techno beat and ambient backtrack. Rabba means god, and the girl is saying, in the first verse:

let no one come into my life
if someone comes don't let them leave
if they're going to give me tears
then don't let them make me laugh before


Will do his album Zinda next.


*ishq: passionate love
**aashiq: passionate lover

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Naervaer is a Norwegian band consisting of Terje Sagen and Jan Transeth. Their sound is spare and evocative, reminding me of jagged cliffs against gray skies or campfires in the night. The tracks ranging from purely instrumental to trip-hoppish to having arrangements and vocals reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. According to Terje Sagen, when they were making their music, "Mood was the key word. Don't force it out - let it come naturally, and the reflection of the mood will be pure." I could picture their music as the soundtrack to a coldly beautiful movie, characters moving in wide open spaces, a landscape that seems to dwarf them.

So far they've released only one CD, Skiftninger. Both these tracks are from that CD.


92-Tid-99
An instrumental track, spare and lonely.

Dose Dager
A simple, rather lovely track, with a slow, steady beat, what sounds like the keyboard, guitar, and Norwegian vocals. Falls somewhere between ambient and alt rock.

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Lets see if I can get into the habit of updating this journal regularly again. First, another ambient band. According to Amazon, Balligomongo is the product of producer Garrett Schwartz, a keybordist-programmer. So far the band's released only one CD, Beneath The Surface. The songs sound like some of Conjure One's more synthpop tracks, with strings, electronic beats, and female vocalists (and lyrics that can get maudlin at times). The soundscapes vary from overproduced and predictable at their worst, to smooth and beautifully ethereal.


Lost
Privilege

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From what I can tell, there are two pillars holding up the economy of Ibiza, tourism and chillout CDs. I'm not quite sure why this works as well as it does, because after a while all chillout music starts to sound the same, the tracks blending into each other to create an almost indistinguishable soundscape, but then again, I am posting about an Ibiza chillout CD, which makes saying that a tad disingenious.

The artists featured here, Royksopp and Groove Armada, to name a couple, are the usual suspects (though there is the Radiohead WTF factor here too), and the tracks are good as background music, or something to drift off to, because the rhythms are constant, the melodies for the most part soothing and repetitive and unobtrusive.


Zero Gravity - Moondial (Lunar Module Mix)
What I thought was the catchiest track on the CD, and probably my favorite.

Spacial - Aisha's Dream
Pretty and soothing, representative of many of the other tracks on this CD.

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Lhasa is a Mexican-American singer who draws from various modern and folk styles, including jazz and french chanson. Her songs have a moody tone and intriguing lyrics, a sound that's rich and seductive and weary.

These two song as from her second album, The Living Road, where she sings in French, Spanish, and English.


La Marée Haute (High Tide)
Sung in French, accompanied by the piano and bass clarinet, and then later strings.

My Name
A stark, melodious song - one of the album's more haunting tracks.


Also, if you ever have a chance to see her live show, you shouldn't miss the opportunity. It's completely amazing.

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Amethystium is the product of Norwegian producer Oystein Ramjford. Its songs have mellow, ambient backtracks that wouldn't sound out of place in an Air album, and vocals that vary from ethereal to gregorian to tribal. Where the band really shines, in my opinion, is in how smoothly all these things are blended in, how natural the progressions of the songs is, the layers and depth in each of the tracks.

These two tracks are from Odonata, their first album.


Opaque
Starts out on an atmospheric, mysterious note, and gradually other ambient tracks are mixed in, and after that sanskrit chant vocals, producing a fantastic blend.

Ethereal
In my opinion, the title describes this song perfectly. One of the more mellow, trance-groove tracks on the album.

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A.R. Rahman is the best known Indian film music producer at this time, and, if articles like this time magazine one are anything to go by, is well on his way to international renown. He's produced soundtracks for dozens of films, starting with the 1992 film Roja, compositions that are a unique mix of modern and classical music traditions.

The following two songs are from the movie The Rising, his latest work.


Al Maddath Maula
A Qawwali-style devotional song where, to be fair, Rahman doesn't vary much from the usual modus operandi - repeating phrases and tabla based rather boring rhythm - but which I still adore without reason, and I finally figured out why. It's because I love dichotomies, and while being a devotional hymn, the song still manages to sound sinister and tragic, as if it could also fit perfectly in a descent to madness soundtrack. Al Maddath Maula means help me god, and it has phrases like - god, is there going to be an even deeper darkness/ god, is there every going to be an end to this night - and there's this feeling that the answer is no, there isn't, the world isn't going to change, it's the person who's going to have to change, and the person knows it, that what they're praying for, really, is the strength to become something terrible so that they can stand up to it.

Rasiya
One of the sexiest songs I've heard in some time. I like how sinuous the whole thing is, how various melodies are twisted together, and I love the really low husky singer's voice (that's there for all of two lines *coughs*). The video for this was amazing.

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