I've come to start following the Coke Studios pretty closely, and its quite easy to follow this Pakistani sesnsation even if you are abroad thanks to their very slick online presence. A facebook page, youtube channel, and their own website.
Episode 3
Brazenly, Im going to tell you I like Noori - I find their songs always somehow hit a sweet spot with me. So I was curious to see what they would do with 'Jo meray' in Coke studios. And they havent disappointed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjehYh8N1iY
Jo meray redux is an intruiguing mix of only mildly intelligible lyrics--although somehow, this manages to be an endearing failure here, somewhat akin to another one my favourites, Fake Empire - The National--and a smooth transition, somewhere along the song from a fusion(ish) feel to a pop-rock sound. 'disco' they call it in the BTS clips, though in the urdu sense, and that encompasses the theme well. And adding the sitar was a brillant touch I thought, it does nicely here. (btw that fake empire video isnt he official one, but it sure is damn funky)
The other interesting song is Zeb and Haniya's 'chal diye', with Javed Bashir joining the fray (he was originally part of Meekal Hassan Band, and their fantastic debut album). I think the end product is the sort of unusual, mildly eccentric piece that mainstream musicians probably would think twice about adding to their albums, because its sort of meandring somehow - but I found it to be another dramatic improvement over the album version, and like Paimona its growing on me fast. Its also got this very interesting revisited vital signs feel to the song.
Here is the original album version:
And the Coke Studio version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY_LzIAG4gc
And a (only vaguely related) video of Javed Bashir singing a very lyrical version of Bulleh Shah's kafi, 'tere ishq nachayya'
Episode 2Zeb and Haniya - Paimona
Zeb and Hania are the upcoming duo from the NWFP that have been a bit of a sensation of late, with a reviews / mentions of their recent debut album plastered all over the pakistani interwebnet. So somewhat hard to miss.
Following a youtubing i conducted back then however, I decided their music wasnt really for me - its sort of this desi / jazz mix, which sounds, i suppose good on paper but in the practice with synthesised beats and not-so-sympthetic mixing sounded pretty tawdry.
In any case, which brings me to this post: Rohail Hayatt running the Coke studio, a funky CocaCola sponsored TV show that get pakipoppers revisiting their songs, in studio with sometimes interesting results.
Zeb and Haniya's rehash of their Paimona, based on an Omar Kayyam rubbai is, to my ear far superior to the version they have on the album (which also included bits of pushto).
Give it a listen, a bit sacharrin at first but it really grows on you - and it helps that they appear to actually speak dari, so the accent is a lot more natural that desi renditions of farsi usually are.
Paimona | Coke Studio.
and a youtube version with a (basic) translation
Update: appears the coke studio website has been hacked by anti capitalist protesters (its currently down). Particularly inane because what coke studio is doing, supporting pakistani musicians, particularly the traditional ones is actually attempting to correct a market failure of capitalism - its inability to adequately support art and culture.
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