Sanjo and Chandrani launch their debut album Barson Huey in New Delhi

Barson Huey, the debut album from Sanjo and Chandrani, has just been launched in New Delhi. The ten tracks on the album offer a refreshing cocktail of brilliant song-writing, excellent melodies, complex arrangements and intricate instrumentation, rounded off with great vocals and backing vocals. The element of fusion comes from the blend of an inherently Hindi music style with diverse Western influences ranging from pop, rock and country to reggae, flamenco and salsa.

One of the main talking points of the album lies in the role played by Sanjo in its creation. He has worn all the hats throughout the project. He is, in effect, a one-man army. He has composed the music and arranged it. He has played all the musical instruments needed to make the songs come alive. Sanjo’s oeuvre includes the six-string acoustic guitar, the twelve-string acoustic guitar, the electric guitar, bass, keyboards, flutes, harmonica, tabla, drums, bongos and various other percussion instruments. Sanjo has also sung the songs and provided backing vocals in a number of tracks. Additionally, he has also supervised the studio production and mastering processes. His versatility enables him to have total control over the creative process, right from concept to final production.

His partner, Chandrani, is equally talented. She writes complete songs in brilliant flashes of instant inspiration — she once wrote four songs in one night! She is also a trained classical singer and her vocal range adds a fascinating new dimension to the album. On certain songs, you can actually hear her doing backing vocals across three different octaves.

As a lyricist, Chandrani demonstrates an admirable ability to use words as constructs for expressing ideas and emotions powerfully and meaningfully. Songs like the title track, Barson Huey, along with others like Sapno Ka Ek Shahar, Aanchal, Shayad Kabhi and her own favourite, Palkon Pe Tha, demonstrate this aptitude for making the lyrics look sparse and deceptively simple, while the underlying conceptual framework is complex and multi-layered.

Chandrani is also the de facto Project Manager for the album. She is proactive and her managerial skills are considerable. Sanjo recalls the various roadblocks the project hit along the way and says that without Chandrani as a driving force, Barson Huey may never have happened.

Interestingly, Chandrani initially joined the project as a singer; she was supposed to do the female vocals and also provide backing vocals. Sanjo’s colleague, Gaurav was the lyricist on the project. However, after completing just four songs, Gaurav (in his own words) faced a “personal tragedy” — he got married! While there is no known correlation between bachelorhood and song-writing skills, his marriage actually put paid to his role as a songwriter. That’s when Chandrani stepped into the lyricist’s shoes — quite effortlessly, as a matter of fact — and completed the remaining six songs. And thus, Barson Huey stayed on track.

The widespread appeal of the songs on this album can be gauged from the fact that the artistes are currently receiving fan mail from listeners of all age groups. Some of these fans are in the forty plus age group while others are teenagers and young adults. Similarly, the appeal of the album extends across geographical borders. When Sanjo visited Faislabad in Pakistan around the middle of 2005, he took his guitar with him and played acoustic versions of some of the songs for small audiences — the songs were received with huge enthusiasm. Again, a couple of months ago, a member of the production team visited New Jersey, carrying around 500 audio CDs. He played the album at pubs, parties and in some Indian music stores. The CDs were sold out in less than a week!

To connect with fans and enable them to listen to sample tracks, the producers have also launched a website (www.musicbysanjo.com) with short bio-sketches of the artistes, lyrics of the songs, plenty of photographs and Mp3 downloads of clips of all the songs.

Packed with ten great tracks, Barson Huey is certainly not a one-hit phenomenon. Likewise, Sanjo and Chandrani have no intention of being a one-album duo — they have already finished working on the material for their second album. Sometime next month, they will be back in the recording studios to produce the new songs. The as yet unnamed album is slated for release later this year.