“Toote Chhaate is an expression of the marriage between poetry and melody” – Nihira-Joshi Deshpande

After releasing a four-track album in the form of ‘Trishna’, singer and composer Nihira-Joshi Deshpande has now released a single titled ‘Toote Chhaate’. The mellifluous song, which revolves around the theme of monsoon, has been sung and composed by Nihira, written by Alok Ranjan Srivastava and arranged by Rhythm Shaw. The audio track has been distributed by Horus Music.

Talking about the interesting story behind the creation of ‘Toote Chhaate’, “I follow Alok’s Instragam page called Hashtag Jazbaat where he posts some of his poetry. I found this really cute couplet which, I thought, could grow into something more. I added a few words, composed a tune around them and sent it to Alok. He liked the tune and completed the song with some more lines and an antara. Initially, the song was composed in a different time signature. Finally, I used the 4/4 time signature and that helped me in widening the horizon of the song. It also helped me vary the intensity in the song. The antara of ‘Toote Chhaate’ is far more intense than the mukhra. We actually brainstormed on the antara for a while. A few days after composing the mukhra, I came up with the tune for the antara. Once I shared the tune for the antara with Alok, he wrote some lines instantly and that’s how the song was completed. ‘Toote Chhaate’ is an expression of the marriage between poetry and melody.”The video of the song, which has been released on Nihira’s official YouTube channel, features some wonderful animation and illustrations created by Barun Roy. The visuals complement the audio track very well and tell a simple story in a very effective manner. Along with the audio track, they help in capturing the essence of monsoon. “The arrangements, which have been done by Rhythm Shaw, are contemporary and fresh. They are also unorthodox in a lot of ways. He used the drums, bass, guitar and keys very nicely. Rhythm wanted to record live drums but the programming itself was so good that we decided to keep it. Another beautiful aspect of the arrangements are the backing vocals which add an interesting layer to the song. The song has been ornamented beautifully by Rhythm. He is somebody who always strives for perfection. Rhythm has also designed and composed the Kodah portion of the song”, says Nihira. Nihira plans to release a lot of fresh music independently this year. The singer-composer is currently working on her first Marathi song. She has collaborated with celebrated artists like Purbayan Chatterjee, Talvin Singh and Chirag Todi on original music that will come out soon.