Film: ‘Lamhaa’; Music Director: Mithoon; Lyricist: Sayeed Qadri and Amitabh Varma; Singers: Chinmayi, Arun Daga, Palash Sen, Mika Singh, Kshitij Tarey, Mohd Irfan and Mithoon; Rating: *** 1/2
Music composer Mithoon, who has created music for very few films like ‘Bas Ek Pal’ and ‘Anwar’, has come out with an impressive and hummable soundtrack in ‘Lamhaa’, a film on Kashmir.
Directed by Rahul Dholakia and starring Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha Basu and Kunal Kapoor, the album boasts of six originals.
It starts with ‘Madno’, a soft, pleasing and soothing track that brings forward the sound of the santoor. The romantic song has been crooned by Kshitij Tarey and Chinmayi. With minimal orchestration, beautiful melody and great vocals, the song does make an impact.
‘Madno’ also has an alternate version, ‘Saajnaa’, where Kshitij’s portion has been replaced by Mika Singh. Mika in a slow song like this does come as a surprise, but he just goes on to prove his versatility as he does complete justice to the track.
Apart from a few words that have been changed from ‘Madno’, the song remains the same.
Next in line is ‘Salaam Zindagi’, which has Arun Daga and Mohd Irfan behind the mike. The song starts with children singing Kashmiri lines and then the singers enter with Hindi lyrics. Saim Bhat has written the Kashmiri lyrics. The inspirational track is highly melodious and extremely likeable.
After a long time, one gets to hear the voice of Palash Sen, vocalist of pop band ‘Euphoria’, in a Bollywood film with ‘Main kaun hoon’, a beautifully arranged track. Palash does well in the song that goes from low baritone to high pitch. The haunting music generates interest.
Then there is ‘Zameen-o-aasmaa’ sung by Kshitij Tarey. It is an average track when compared to the other songs in the album. It is more of a situational number.
Finally there is ‘Rehmat zara’, where composer Mithoon takes charge of the vocals too along with Mohammad Irfan. The song has influences of rock and Sufi music. Mithoon belts out a good track again.
On the whole, the album has a robust mix of songs that are soulful and entertaining. Also, Mithoon has done justice to the theme of the film.
