ekhon takhon
Nachiketa
SaReGaMa; Rs 42

Nachiketa surfaces now and then with his albums and this album emphasises on the ‘now’ and ‘then’ of his Jeebonmukhi singing. There are four songs on each side ? Ekhon and Takhon. Nachiketa sings in his inimitable trademark voice and the eight songs are written and scored by him as usual. Sobujer phike rong is one of the best in this album and is already a popular number on the charts.

nachiketar...hothat abar
Sudeshna Ganguli
SaReGaMa; Rs 42

This one’s from Nachiketa again, but the songs are sung by Sudeshna Ganguli. The eight songs are written and scored by Nachiketa. Sudeshna is good so far as her voice is concerned. Nachiketa accompanies her in some songs with a line here and a hum there. The opening song, Jodi hothat abar, has a couple of lines snatched from Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s (Mere Humdum Mere Dost) mukhda in Chalo sajna jahaan tak ghata chale, and Nachiketa interposes with the line in its original version. Some of the songs are pretty average and the lines jar at times. Ektu dekha is light, and Dristi jhhapsa and Phera mane are two of the better ones.

anandodhoni
Udoy Bhaduri
Bhavna; Rs 40

Udoy Bhaduri sings 10 Tagorean gems, befitting his age and voice. For example, Bhaktohridhibikash, Aamar bichar tumi koro, Mono mor meghero songi, Purano se diner kotha, among others. These songs sound good in the deep voice he possesses and he does well to choose songs appropriate to his gayaki; it matters especially when you have a Rabindrasangeet album coming out almost every day.

Madhuparna Das

s.o.s.
Arka, Joy and Ankur
Raga; Rs 35

Rasping voices, smart guitarplay, angry lyrics ? to start off with, all ingredients of good rock are present in every crescendo of S..S. But after the first couple of tracks the music grates a bit and the guitar flares just sound like a whole lot of noise. The end result, sadly, isn’t something that’ll set your system on fire. One gets the feeling that only if the three band members were to go a bit slow on the rock shock and awe and give some more thought to music, things would turn out fine ? and there really would be no need for an SOS.

Satadru Ojha