When someone in a collaborative project rests all the credits upon his or her partner, it is a mark of humility. Guitarist Baiju Dharmajan wants us to listen to ‘lyricist’ Arun Omana Sadanandan first, to acquaint us with their latest project Confessions of a Saint. This piece of music is the first to come from the duo’s progressive Malayalam rock album Orphans from Russia.
Chances are, your deep set notions regarding rock music can come crashing down with this ‘song’, which was recently released on YouTube.
Arun, also the ‘singer’, has used an oratory style for the verses to the accompaniment of guitar strings that fall in line with this out-of-the-box experimental music. As the title indicates, the story is a confession; someone desperate to repent his sins is doing the talking.
“It’s not extempore. I had the lines with me,” Arun clarifies in the beginning. But it all happened so quickly. One night, at Baiju’s place, he recorded all the ‘confessions’ and left. Next morning, he woke up to a surprise treat. Baiju had set a musical arrangement to his ‘speech’ to greet his friend.
“The album was in discussion since the day he and I worked for his film (Manasandarapetta Yezdi). After the movie, we gave some serious thought to work out the thing. Then it was about Arun penning the lyrics, me setting the music and someone else was to do the singing. Once this out-of-the-blue creation was done, we decided to go ahead with it,” says Baiju.
That they worked on a shoestring budget is commendable. Videography was ditched to make it an affordable in-house studio production.
Where does the idea come from? “A personal experience can be a spark of an idea. It’s not true to call it a fully personal thing either. It works the same way as with a film script. More than 90 per cent of it was born out of my imagination,” explains Arun.
Orphans from Russia is a 10 part series with one song due every month. The second one, Yakshi, is ready for release next week. Both the makers alert more confessions are en route. Stay tuned.
