Kabilan and co add new flavour to indie music with ‘songlets’

CHENNAI: Every time we dial up Kabilan Vairamuthu to know what is happening on the work front, he comes up with something innovative. While it was an historical fiction titled Aagol, last time, he tells us about his latest work Chinnanjiru Paadalgal and adds, “You can call them Songlets. It is a portmanteau of songs originating from couplets.”

The songs comprise of lines from Kabilan’s poems and have been named in the album as Thillai, Paalai, Sindhuvaaram, Punnai and Magizham. According to him, the R and D was a challenging process.

“I had to research on poems that had the potential to be converted into songs. Not every poem has that characteristic. At the same time, it should give listeners a refreshing feeling when they listen to it. Some of the movie songs and indie music seem to revolve around the same content. We decided to break the stereotype. Also, this process gave me a good understanding of my own poems. In fact, I rewrote some of my own poems that I had penned during my college days and restructured them to suit the current day listeners’ taste,” explains Kabilan.

That is not all. He has collaborated with composer Balamurali Balu and has made it as an independent album. “We have released it in the form of a lyric video with illustrations to it. Each week, one song from the album will be released, with Thillai being launched this week. We are also aware of who we cater these songs to. Keeping the shortened attention span of the audience of late, the entire album is kept to only 11 minutes,” says the writer-lyricist.

Having worked with several composers in his career, Kabilan says that his rapport with Balamurali made him approach the music director for Chinnanjiru Paadalgal. “We go a long way back. He was the composer for Demonetisation Anthem, which was sung by Silambarasan and had lyrics by me. We also worked together in Arya’s Ghajinikanth and another indie album. I believed he could understand the sensibilities well and he did. Five songs from the album are sung by Aditi Bhavaraju, Shobika Murukesan, Ramnath Bhagavath, Bhuvana Ananth, and Ramya Ramkumar. Ramamurthy has created the pencil art for the lyric video. On a concluding note, Kabilan says, “Aspiring filmmakers can use these songs in their show reels, and also for free on social media handles.”