Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle - You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood

Genre world Publisher Nonesuch Records External Links Official Website Nonesuch Records

R. D. Burman composed music for Bollywood films like Kala Sona and Sholay, outrageous contrivances whose plots took in hippie love tribes in Nepal, failure to appease serpent goddesses, and the like. He was a great film composer whose contrivances were truly eclectic, weird and beyond good taste, like the films themselves.

Some say that the singer Asha Bhosle, who was the voice of many Burman compositions (and his wife), is the most-recorded singer of all time, with more than 1,000 films and 13,000 recorded tracks under her name. Here she teams up with the Kronos Quartet to re-record a dozen Bollywood classics by Burman.

It's all good stuff--vintage instruments are used, many overdubs are employed, and some of You've Stolen My Heart was recorded in hotel rooms and other unlikely spaces to achieve a warm, idiosyncratic tonal quality that perfectly matches the music. Keyboards, tabla and various exotic stringed instruments are also used.

The real star is, of course, Bhosle herself, simultaneously distanced, girlish, knowing and passionate. This is schlock that knows its place, blatantly "false" and emotional in a way that American music is not. Every track contains a surprise, whether it's a synth flourish or a gong or a wordless "la-la-la." It's frenetic yet somehow relaxing.

So this is exemplary entertainment, even if you don't understand the language and don't care about the convoluted plots of the films these compositions were written for. You can make up your own films. And "If People Come" boasts one of the most insidiously catchy melodies known to man. A great combination of high art and entertainment you won't want to miss.