Music Reviews - Kerala Cafe and Swa Le

Movie - Kerala Cafe (Malayalam)
Directors - M Padmakumar, Shankar Ramakrishnan, Shaji Kailas, Uday Ananthan, Anjali Menon, B Unnikrishnan, Shyamaprasad, Anwar Rasheed, Revathy, Lal Jose & Ranjith.
Producer - Ranjith
Cast - Mammootty, Sreenivasan, Suresh Gopi, Dileep, Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Rahman, Jagathy Sreekumar, Thilakan, Siddique, Suraaj Venjaarammood, Manikandan, Augustine Salimkumar, Sreenath, Fahadh Fazil, Manian Pilla Raju, Anoop Menon, Sudheesh, Navya Nair, Sukumari, Jyothirmayi, Meera Nandan, Rima Kallingal, Nithya Menon, Dhanya Mary Varghese, Shwetha Menon, Sona Nair and others.
Music - Bijipal
Singer - P Jayachandran
Lyrics - Rafeeq Ahmed
Release Date - 29th October 2009.


Kerala Cafe is an interesting experiment which blends together 10 short films made by 10 directors in a single movie. All the stories in the movie are based on the theme of 'journey' or yathra. The movie has one theme song which can be called as a soul of the whole movie. The song, 'Kadhayamama Kadhakalathi Sagaram'. Composed by Bijibal and performed by P Jayachandran, it is a brilliant song which captures your attention the very first time you hear it. The beginning of the song which is a famous verse by Thunchath Ezhuthachchan is perfect for the theme of the song as well as the movie. The song written by Rafeeq Ahmed talks about people getting together at  a roadside restplace and telling stories to each other, which is what happens in the movie, at a coffee shop in a railway station, called Kerala Cafe. Jayachandran's elegant voice is absolutely amazing to hear and he sings each line giving the proper emphasis it needs and the words flow out beautifully through his great voice.  He is given good support by the chorus singers as well. Bijipal has also added the sounds of a travelling train to add to the theme of journey in the song. This  song has the power of holding the whole movie together. All in all, a brilliant song.


Rating - 4.5/5

Movie - Swa Le (Malayalam)
Director - P Sukumar
Producers - P Sukumar, Anu M Warrier
Cast - Dileep, Gopika, Innocent, Ashokan, Manikkuttan, Vijayaraghavan, Ganesh
Music - Bijibal
Writer - Kalavoor Ravikumar
Cinematography - P Sukumar
Lyrics - Anil Panachooran
Singers - Madhu Balakrishnan, Shwetha Mohan, Nedumudi Venu, Anil Panachooran
Release Date - 29th October 2009





The successful team of Bijipal and Anil Panachooran is back after great songs in Arabikkatha and Loudspeaker (we can excuse the mistake called Minnaminnikkoottam). These two can be trusted to give melodious music which has the strong nativity of our land and they do so in this album too. Anil Panachooran makes sure that he uses only lovely Malayalam words rather than going for fancy English words for the sake of creating catchy numbers. Bijipal creates a nostalgic feel through his melodious tunes. 


The first song is 'Cheruthingal Thoni ' by Madhu Balakrishnan and Shwetha Mohan. It is a melodious romantic number which is hard not to like. The song is very pleasant and soothing and also has an old world feel to it. The movie is set around 20 years back and the song definitely creates a feel of that time period. Madhu Balakrishan who usually sings without any expression, has done a good job of giving a romantic feel to the song. Shwetha is really good as usual. She is sure to be as popular and versatile as her mother in the coming years. The lyrics by Anil Panachooran is also very nice in spite of having nothing special in it. At least, he has not ruined the song by using unwanted words. All in all, it is a beautiful and pleasant romantic song which is soothing to the ears. (4/5)


The next song, 'Sandhya Prakashame' is a poem narrated by Nedumudi Venu, Madhu Balakrishnan and the poet Anil Panachooran himself. The poem begins in Nedumudi Venu's voice and Madhu Balakrishnan takes over after that. We all know that Nedumudi Venu is excellent when it comes to recite poems and he doesnt let us down in this track also. The exceptional lyrics by Anil Panachooran asks the force above to lead the way for the protagonist and help him face all the hurdles in life. Bijipal has given a short but great instrumental interlude in between the recital of the poem, which works very well. It has been ages since we heard an actual Kavitha in a Malayalam film, the last one being Chora Veena Mannil by Anil Panachooran himself in Arabikkatha. This track should work better when seen in the movie. (3.5/5)


Even though there are only two tracks in the album, Swa Le gives good quality songs unlike other movies which have 4 or 5 soulless songs. The romantic number and the poem are good works and should fare better once the movie comes out. The movie also looks promising and I hope it does well too. 


Rating - 3.8/5