Jhund music review: Ajay-Atul make ample room for innovation in Nagraj Manjule's familiar territory

At the beginning of this story, there is Ram Gopal Varma. It is with his 2004 film Gayab that composer duo and brothers Ajay-Atul began scoring music for films. The title track involved elaborate instrumentation, a compelling percussion whose beats echo in the silent aftermath, and a snatch of melody, all three of which would become calling cards of the composers. In the following years, their orchestration-heavy compositions would lend itself to music across genres — historicals, social dramas, masala, action, romance, a war cry, an erotic wash — occasionally straddling Hindi films with their Marathi musical sensibilities. ‘Zingaat’ from Sairat [2016]  would become a totem, a threshold, the kind of song producers would use as a reference when asking composers to compose and remix songs for them. For the longest time, Ajay-Atul were known for their percussion heavy pump-music, the kind that made a Ganesha devotional hymn into a haunting chorus in crescendo — ‘Shree Ganeshay Dheemahi’ sung by Shankar Mahadevan — or the kind who could infuse a moment of melody into an ‘item song’ — ‘Chikni Chameli’ sung by Shreya Ghoshal [Agneepath, 2012]. They were, after all, the composers invited to energise the damp limpness of Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi! [2005]  with a percussive Hanuman Chalisa. There is something exciting, but also worrying, about trailing through the breadcrumbs of an artist’s work, towards their earlier years, and seeing the same stamps stain through their years — that their preoccupations have not changed. This could mean stagnation too. But in the case of Ajay-Atul, it is a strong, stable foundation of music — one that was not learned but acquired, for neither of them are trained musicians — which they try to push at, resisting the temptation to replicate. In their music, you can find the sounds of the violin, trumpet, and flute with more local ones like the mridangam, tabla, and pakhawaj. Of course, they hark back to their work as references every now and then — ‘Sairat Zala Li’ in ‘Mera Naam Tu’ [Zero, 2018] or more egregiously, the chorus of ‘Shree Ganeshay Dheemahi’ in ‘Tanha’ from Gayab, and ‘Kombdi Palali’ from Jatra [2006] repurposed into ‘Chikni Chameli.’  

In Jhund, their latest four-song album, and their third collaboration with director Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, these preoccupations and the shadows of their past work remain, but you can also feel the palpable urge to reach beyond their grasp.

There are the violins introducing the swag song of the album ‘Aaya Yeh Jhund Hai,’ retro club tunes prefacing a percussion of the streets — empty cans, sticks, and rusted remains of cars as seen in the teaser — in ‘Lafda Zala,’ a hark back to ‘Zingat’ too, which began as club music that transitions with sudden verve into rowdy chest thumping, foot stamping. These songs establish the raucous energy of the youth who make up the film. Amitabh Bachchan’s character, the real life Vijay Barse, founder of NGO Slum Soccer, believes he can redirect their anger, this destabilising energy towards football.   There is a familiar hangover of Ajay-Atul’s work in ‘Aaya Yeh Jhund Hai,’ but more so in ‘Lafda Zala’ — not just that, both have Atul Gogavale’s vocals used as the male voice through the Sairat album. When I was humming ‘Lafda Zala,’ stripped off its percussive punch, I found myself suddenly singing ‘Yaad Lagala’ from Sairat, a soft, grand pronouncement of love. These songs ebb and flow into one another.   The essence of ‘Lafda Zala’ was composed within 30 seconds, during the promotions of Sairat, when an audience asked Ajay-Atul to compose a song to their rag-tag lyrics. That hurried urgency remained as the tune stayed, with Manjule insisting that they use it in Jhund, scrapping the make-do lyrics with Amitabh Bhattacharya’s quirk-lyricism, “Bada ghaav, vada paav jaanke kha gaye." There is almost an effortless inevitability to these songs, forming in the slowly darkening, thickening shadow of the influences of Ajay-Atul, including themselves.     Then, there is Sid Sriram — trained in Carnatic, who studied R&B — in a musical soundscape that can be best described as Marathi melancholy. He is given two songs — the upbeat ‘Laat Maar,’ where the voice chafes at the mood, and ‘Baadal Se Dosti,’ which feels like a composition built around Sriram’s voice, using the Ajay-Atul template of a melody that lies low till it swells into the upper notes, and stays there. ‘Abhi Mujh Mein Kahin’ from Agneepath is a better example, for the build up to the high notes is preferred to the sudden switch, the jerk-like motion upwards through the scales in ‘Baadal Se Dosti.’ When Sriram’s voice enters the soundscape, the tension is palpable — between the fragility of his voice, the heft of the chorus, and the edgy urgency of Sourabh Abhyankar’s rap in ‘Laat Maar,’ or even the slurring pronunciations against the staccato clarity of the beats in ‘Baadal Se Dosti.’ These are Sriram’s first Hindi songs, and his quivering voice, a thing of quaking beauty, is not able to give the lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya any perceptive shape, tapering off into the next word or the fullness of the orchestration.   Listen to the full album of Jhund here. Jhund is slated to release in cinemas this Friday on 4 March. Prathyush Parasuraman is a critic and journalist, who writes a weekly newsletter on culture, literature, and cinema at  prathyush.substack.com. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.