Mekaal Hasan Band is in the completion phase of giving final touches to their 3rd studio album ‘Andholan’. This time around MHB is working on Amir Khusrau’s kalam for their upcoming album that is all set for a release, most probably by the end of this year.
From Sampooran (a set of five notes) to Saptak (a set of seven notes), we preview Mekaal Hasan Band’s latest album.
I’ll confess: the Mekaal Hasan Band (MHB) for me (and for quite a few people) has been an acquired taste; mostly brought upon by attending some of its live performances. The first album, Sampooran, featured artistes that are the best in their field, but has often been described as too ‘hard to digest’. It definitely wasn’t listener-friendly, and the worst critique that one can give it is that the sheer perfection sought in the technique employed in the musical and vocal arrangements had robbed it of its soul. Getting off to a slow start, the album picked up a couple of years later, once the style of music (an attempt at a type of eastern jazz, if you may) managed to penetrate the minds of local audiences. Sampooran is now one of the stronger music albums to come out from the local pop arena.
Amidst concerts and a television show – Iqbal Ka Pakistan – and personal loss, Ali Azmat has been AWOL. Even though he released the videos for ‘Gallan’ and ‘Tanha Hai Kyun’, Ali Azmat’s presence has been minimal as far as promoting his record, Klashinfolk goes. But then, marketing has never been Ali’s strongest suit. Now he’s back or so we hope…
The bounce back comes with music and the new video from Ali Azmat, ‘Tera Mera’ that is currently running on airwaves as well as circulating in the infinite world of cyberspace.
When we asked Mekaal Hasan, “Why are Waris Shah and Sanwal on Saptak Record”, these were his words:
“If you remember the record that was supposed to come out was Andholan. However, since we were signed to EMI, they had no idea what to do with the kind of record Andholan was. The band had plenty of material written and thus decided to incorporate that material for EMI and hence the record Saptak. The reason for those 2 songs being there was because Waris Shah has a video for it and EMI wanted to run that on this record. Sanwal is there as a reggae version which we’ve been playing for 2 years so we decided to document that version. I hope you enjoy the new record. It was a lot of hard work but also lots of fun.”
There are 11 songs on Saptak. The record is 63 mins long so there’s plenty of music coming your way. Here’s the song order:
1. Chal Bulleya
2. Bandeya
3. Ranjha
4. Jhok Ranjhan
5. Sanwal
6. Bhageshwaari
7. Huns Dhun
8. Waris Shah
9. Andholan
10. Mahi
11. Albaella
Instrumentals & Live
* Andholan
* Animalcule
* Teri Yaad (Cover)
* Fall From Grace
* Jhok Ranjhan
* Kinna Sona(Cover)
* Pentagruel
Sampooran
* Darbari
* Late Moon
* Rabba
* Sajan
* Sanwal
* Sampooran
* Dreamscape (live)
* Waris Shah
* Ya Ali