Dekha Jaye Ga / Uf Yeh Beevian / Various

• Track Listing

2009 release. For the second installment in Finders Keepers' Sounds Of Wonder! Series, exclusively licensed from EMI Pakistan, the label present two previously unreleased soundtracks, Dekha Jaye Ga (1960) and Uf Yeh Beevian (1976). The two soundtracks feature the talents of M. Ashraf, Nahid Akhter, Mehdi Hassan, Tafo Brothers, and Ahmed Rushdi, all of whom were featured on the first The Sound Of Wonder! #compilation (BMS 012CD, 2009). Commonly, ignorantly but understandably lumped in with it's wealthy not-too-distant cousin, Bollywood, Lollywood was inspired by, but often overshadowed by, it's posh and well-traveled relative. Following the simplistic "Bombay + Hollywood = Bollywood" name game (that would in later years spawn Nollywood in Nigeria), Lollywood's Lahore based film industry was a profitable and vibrant one that found great success in the modest boundaries of it's own country but was seldom savored outside Pakistan. However, the hugely important musical business spawned a by-product that was viewed as a potential earner for international entertainment industry, EMI, which allowed talented musicians to create ambitious music with world class mediums at their disposal, which throughout the '60s and '70s ranged from fuzz-guitars, space-echo machines, and American and European synthesizers, but, due to the composers indigenous roots, rarely a drum-kit. Here, you'll find fuzzy, scuzzy, twang-happy, spaced-out, and funked-up Urdu-grooves, complete with harmonium melodies and driven by some of the most random factor, freakish, finger-numbing, percussion that the South East Asian mainstream has ever had to offer. Above all, Lollywood soundtracks sound raw. Re-imagine some of the most action-packed Bollywood productions (which Lollywooders actively did) then fire the make-up department, take away the special effects budget, and then improvise. The lack of gloss on a dusty Pakistani mini-LP makes for truly experimental Eastern pop music. Beautifully remastered and presented here in a split digipak.

Credits