The Music Geeks

Arrangers-turned-composers Sachin Sanghvi and Jigar Saraiya synthesize soul and technology in their music with trippy lines,of which their parents might not approve.

MEETING music composers Sachin Sanghvi and Jigar Saraiya popular as Sachin-Jigar at their recording studio in Mumbais Oshiwara,reveals their openness towards music and life. Both from humble,middle-class background; 28-year-old Saraiya and 32-year-old Sanghvi are self-confessed Gujju-dhokhla boys.

Listening to their music,however,gives a very different picture of the two. Their latest song to have hit the web and television is being pitched as the trippiest song of the year and is set to the visuals of a rave party in Goa. The lines go: Raat hai ek whore,hain maange more,tu loot ja slowly slowly and dissolves into psychedelic trance music. Our parents may disown us after they hear the song. Some people have asked if we were on drugs while composing this, says Sanghvi. The album of Go Goa Gone a film being dubbed as Indias first zom-com (zombie-comedy) and their second outing with director duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK is made in a similar vein. They told us that the music should not have any relation to zombies, says Saraiya. The five songs in the album have elements of country music,Indie-rock and reggae apart from the dominant presence of electronic dance music (EDM).

Starting out as music-arrangers,Sanghvi and Saraiya had been exposed to two different schools of music-making. They stepped into the world of Bollywood by assisting,and later arranging for veteran composer Rajesh Roshan (a friend of Saraiyas father). With Roshan,they enjoyed the simple beauty of old fashioned tabla-dholak based music. That was our introduction to 70mm music, says Sanghvi,who was introduced to Saraiya by fellow musician composer Amit Trivedi.

Later during their stint with music composer Pritam ,they started working on 10 songs a day as opposed to one song for 10 days. It not only became their initiation into cutting-edge,digital techniques of music production but also a springboard to becoming full-fledged Bollywood composers. Pritam pushed us to go out and do our own thing even though we were reluctant, says Saraiya.

It has been four years since the duo took the plunge with Tere Sang. They have now carved out a musical identity of their own a synthesis of soul and technology,with a penchant for catchy,melodious tunes.

Their runaway party-hit from the 2010 film FALTU,Chaar Baj Gaye,was their major breakthrough. But before they could be typecast into dance numbers,they came up with an eclectic score for Shor in the City,working with Krishna-DK for the first time. Even though they have tried their hands at various kinds of films,it is the alternative space where they are most comfortable.

Their foray into arranging can be attributed to their obsession to get the sound of a song right. From an early age,Sanghvi and Saraiya had been fascinated with the thought of how English songs sounded superior to regular Hindi fare. They found an answer in computers that were used to produce music in India in the early 90s,with the arrival of AR Rahman on the scene. The Rahman phase revolutionised sounds,production,ideas started getting implemented in Bollywood, says Sanghvi.

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As pro-technology musicians,their basic training ground was theatre,wherethey scored music for plays,mostly Gujarati,with a bit of Marathi,Hindi and English too. They have scored for more than 500 plays,and still continue to do so. It taught us how to translate emotions into musical notes in the purest form. This learning has helped immensely in scoring the background music for films, says Saraiya.

Their next step is composing music for Maneesh Sharmas film with Parineeti Chopra and Sushant Singh Rajput that is being produced by Yash Raj Films. The movie set in contemporary Rajasthan,will have a score riding on folk music.

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