Coke Studio Season 8 kicked off with a fair degree of musical fanfare. It has to be said that it was the Mekaal Hasan Band with the track Sayon which clearly stood out both in terms of the quality of singing, arrangement and time slot. The band’s singer was top-notch. Her murkian were clean and she did super justice to the lyrics of the song.

Mai Dhai was also good. But one felt that Karam Abbas’s inclusion in the Aankharli Pharookai song was a bit of an intrusion. Mai Dhai could have pulled off the number on her own. Fluctuation in sound just to add variety doesn’t always work.

The ghazal that Nabil sang was not up his street. He is a fine singer, but appeared more conscious to get the pitching right then to get the feel of the ghazal spot-on.

Atif Aslam’s version of the famous Sabri Brothers’ qawwali Tajdar-i-Haram left much to be desired. For starters, during the switchover in the antara, the scale was not correct. He should’ve sung the antaras at least a half-a-note up. Also, every time he tried to leave the note with the word ge (sanwar jaen ge etc), it didn’t come off the way it should have. He needs to work hard on end notes. However, this is something that the producers of the Studio should have taken care of beforehand.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 23rd, 2015

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