Chiru — Golimar (Shoot the Bullet)

from Donga (1985)

A Tollywood (South Indian) take on Michael Jackson’s Thriller… the pelvic thrusting is just.. epic. The bass line is lifted from the original, though it’s a bit hard to make out. Not sure who sings the song, but the actor is Chiru, aka Chiranjeevi.

Shankar Jaikishan & Rais Khan — Raga Kalavati

from Raga Jazz Style (1968)

Still combing through the Megaupload-related carnage among the blogs..and so, so bummed to see that the great (now mythical) Holy Warbles is among those fallen. Such a brimming archive of the world’s sounds… now silenced.

I grabbed this mind-blowing album some time ago from Holy Warbles… let this post serve as a sort of impromptu wake for one of the greatest music blogs on the internet. May it be reincarnated somewhere soon.

Doug at WFMU’s Give the Drummer Some played a full three-hour warbling tribute set this morning—check it out. (audio should be up later today)

Ustad Ghulam Sadiq Khan — Raga Lalit

from Versatile Ragas

I was in India earlier this year, and one day I dragged a friend around Delhi looking for records, CDs and mp3 DVDs at street stalls and shops. I saw this disc in a modern, HMV-style CD shop in New Delhi, and picked it up for just a few dollars.

It was a remarkable find, for this man’s voice is truly like no other. In fact, at times it sounds unlike a human voice at all. Here the vocal chords are reinvented as an entirely new instrument. The style is a modern Indian classical genre called khayal, thought to have developed from the qawwali style of singing.

‘Raga Lalit’ is an early morning raga.

Khan in 2009

Runa Laila — Aankh mili aur takraya

from Tiger Gang (1971)

Today I’m going to highlight a few Pakistani movie numbers from the terrific blog Hindustani Vinyl. It’s a treasure trove of gems from 1960s and 70s Bollywood and Lollywood (Pakistan’s movie capital, Lahore), but unfortunately the blog serves as an appetizer for a German rare records vendor of the same name, and the tracks are all cut about 2/3rds through. Don’t let that deter you—some great discoveries await!

This one’s a hip number sung by Bangladeshi playback singer Runa Laila for the film Tiger Gang aka Kommissar X jagt die roten Tiger, a story of drug addicts and gangsters. It was a rare collaboration between Austrian film director Harald Reinl and Lollywood producers, but despite (or maybe because of) the subject matter, it was a box office flop (and has only scored 4.5 stars on imdb). Ouch.

Here’s a video clip of this song from the movie.

Manna Dey — Aao Twist Karein

from Bhoot Bungla (Haunted House) (1965)

Bollywood does the twist, with RD Burman’s cop of Chubby Checker. The star twister is actor/director Mehmood Ali, but playback singer Manna Dey is covering vocals.

Charanjit Singh — Raga Megh Malhar

from Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat (2010)

Stellar synth work from this Bollywood session player. It’s kind of hard to imagine that he recorded these acid house tracks way back in 1982 — but if you’ve ever fallen asleep to a 21-minute sitar raga, these ragas may be the antidote.

Here’s the original album cover:

And a closeup of the man at work:

Buy it, and a bunch of other groovy Bollywood numbers, digital or LP, from Bombay Connection Records.