PremiumExclusive! Charan Raj about Sapta Sagaradaache Ello's music: I'm Hemanth's instrument; give a musical translation to his ideas
The music composer is currently busy winding up work on his third collaboration with Hemanth, a film that has 12 songs in all, spread over two instalments of six each
Last Updated: 10.17 PM, Aug 26, 2023
When OTTplay recently met music man Charan Raj in his studio, he was still busy sending files to director Hemanth M Rao for their next film, Sapta Sagaradaache Ello. The two-part film will have its first instalment in theatres on September 1 and last minute additions and improvisations are still on for its final version. The soundtrack has 12 songs, six each in the two parts, of which only two have been released in the public domain yet. “We may release one more just ahead of September 1,” Charan tells us, even as he keeps glancing at the monitor to check the progress of the upload he’s just made.
On the promise that we will keep the conversation short, we then settle in for a quick conversation about the music of Sapta Sagaradaache Ello. “The last few months have been very hectic. I was working on the two parts of Sapta Sagaradaache Ello, as well as director Suri’s Bad Manners, Duniya Vijay’s Bhima, Janardhan Chikkanna’s Agnyathavasi, which Hemanth is producing. There’s also a film called Somu Sound Engineer and Dhananjaya’s Uttarakaanda, but right now, my single-minded focus is on finishing up Sapta Sagaradaache Ello,” says Charan.
In the run-up to the release of Side A, as the first part of the film is called, the team released two songs, a rap number called Horaata and the melodious title track. The latter, sung by Kapil Kapilan, has become a major hit, with audiences calling out the great vocals and Charan’s choice of using the very 90s synthwave for the song. “First of all, I feel fortunate to be a part of the team of Sapta Sagaradaache Ello and doing a film with Rakshit Shetty; he is a great visionary. As for my music, it is always a by-product of the director’s vision; I am his instrument. Hemanth, for instance, listens to a lot of really great music and it was his idea to use a synthesizer. He shares his playlist, which helps me and my team. Here, we have given his idea a musical translation and I am very happy that people are identifying the genre – synthwave. These days, people get listen to so much music and are really in tune with genres and sub-genres and when I see the comments, I feel very happy,” says Charan.
Having 12 songs in the film is Hemanth’s idea , adds the composer. “When we start the process of composing, we do a lot of options for a single situation, and it may not work for that, but for something else; you end up doing multiple variations and Hemanth usually likes quite a few of them. In the process, it just happened that the film got 12 songs, which, honestly, is not easy; it’s a lot of challenging work. Each number is in a different genre, and only some are stand-out songs, while the rest go with montages. All of them take the narrative forward,” he adds.
Charan is known to work repeatedly with a set of filmmakers, like Hemanth, Duniya Suri, among others. Does the familiarity help his creative process? “When you know a filmmaker well, you tend to be fearless when composing. In the process, you may make mistakes, but when you are comfortable with that, good things tend to come of it. With Hemanth, Suri and Duniya Vijay, I am fearless and experiment, which is a more enjoyable process for me,” he explains.