EP-01: "URUMBU"

23rd January, 2022

(Listen to the audio version at the end of this page for the best experience)

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the first episode of ‘Alt of Ideas’. My name is Adithya, and to kick off the first episode, I’m going to talk about one of my favourite songs from the independent catalogue. The band is Thaikkudam Bridge, and the song is 'Urumbu'. Stay tuned.

*Intro Theme Plays (00:13)*

"Urumbu" (00:37)

If you haven’t heard of Thaikkudam, they are a 15 member musical suite that have made a name for themselves over the last decade writing poetic rock tracks infused with Carnatic and southern folk music styles. They’ve got two studio albums and numerous live appearances to their name, so they’re definitely going to end up on this show more than once. But, to start off the trend, I’m gonna introduce you to their song called Urumbu - which is the Malayalam word for 'Ant'.

The song 'Urumbu' by Thaikkuddam Bridge personifies the struggle and toil of ants as they live and serve their queen and colony. It's a really interesting song thematically, but I love it more so because it is also fantastically produced. It’s groovy, ambient, and no matter how many times I listen to it, I never get bored. Here are 3 reasons why I love the song 'Urumbu'.

Reason 1 - The guitars (01:20)

The first thing you hear when you listen to 'Urumbu' is a beautifully played acoustic guitar progression:

*Audio Plays (01:27)*

The guitarist here - Ashok Nelson if you’re curious - is playing a really nice G-Major 7th to A-major progression, which, without getting too technical, just has a really nice introspective feel to it. Given that the song covers a philosophical theme, the ambience of the guitars is a good complementing element, and it really helps set the tone of the song going forward. The G-Major 7th chord especially is repeated during the bridge and build-up to each chorus, and in my opinion, it’s the key driving force for the introspective feel.

But, what can we take away from this? Well if you’re a musician and you’re trying to capture a certain feeling or emotion with your composition, then using variations of major or minor chords such as a G-major 7 is a good way to go. For instance, if you wanted to create a feeling of calmness, you could achieve this by taking any chord, say a C-Major, [*Audio Plays* (02:23)] and doing one of two things:

A) you can rearrange the notes in the C-major chord to create what we call a “different” voicing of the same chord. Shifting lower notes to a higher position changes the chord’s emphasis, thus giving a different feel to it. Check it out [*Audio Plays* (02:40)]. It’s the same chord, but it feels different, right?

B) In addition to rearranging notes in an existing chord, especially if you’re writing in the major scale, you could also use the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th note in any musical scale in addition to the existing notes in a major chord to give your chords more spice. Like this - [*Audio Plays* (03:02)] - Dreamy, right?

This is essentially what Thaikkudam is doing, and, because the chords are also played with open strings, the introspection and ambience is pretty much doubled.

Reason 2 - The Drums (03:20)

If you listen to a lot western pop music, then you’ve probably heard of the songs Despacito and Taki Taki before. Both are really popular 'Reggaeton' or 'Latin Pop' tracks, notorious for their use of this drum groove:

*Audio Plays* (03:36)

This is a really cool swing-style groove, although, personally, I am not a fan of the way it’s used in Taki Taki, Despacito, or even that music video with the weird dancing alien. What was it called again - [*'Dame Tu Cosita' audio plays* (03:50)]. Yeah - that. The thing is these tracks use this groove quite generically, with electronic drums that don’t change as the song progresses, to, you know spruce things up. The songs themselves are musically quite bare, so hearing the same synthetic groove run on loop for 3 minutes just kinda irks me. Not to mention it was almost impossible to avoid these songs when they went viral.

However, there is a way to make this groove come to life, and the boys in Thaikkudam have nailed it. By having a drummer play the same groove, on an actual drum set, the band manages to lock in that swing feel while throwing in plenty of fills and rhythmic variations to keep the energy of the song up. The result, coupled with a solid off-beat bass guitar, is a groove you simply cannot deny (is groovy). Check it out:

*Audio Plays* (04:41)

Reason 3 - Production Value (04:58)

So this is a bit more subjective, but I am a huge fan of the way this song has been mixed and mastered overall. It’s a lot to talk about, but here are two things in particular that stood out to me:

The first is the acoustic guitars. Now I’ve spoken about the musicality of the guitar playing already, but one thing that adds a little bit of spice is the way it’s mixed. Steel string guitars produce quite a wide range of audio across the frequency spectrum, which makes it a little hard to fit it in with other instruments. You really want to find that balance that allows you to retain it’s rawness, you know with things like string twang or fret noise, but you also don’t want too much of that because well it’ll sound scratchy.

At the same time you also don’t want too much of a "bassy-sounding" guitar because then it’ll start to overlap with the bass guitar. In Urumbu, the guitars are really well mixed; you can hear the plucking of the strings, but at the same time it fits really well with everything else, and that makes it really cool. This may be something to consider in case you write guitar-based music.

Aside from this, the other thing that stands out to me is the guitar solo in the latter half of the song. Now, not much needs to be said about the guitarist behind it. Mithun Raju - Thaikkudam’s lead player - does a really great job, and generally, he’s really talented. Although, what piques my interest is the reverb and delay that’s been added to his solo to make it sound more ambient. Adding a bit of reverb and delay to an instrument can make it sound “larger than life”, which is apt because a solo is all about energy. Without the effects, the same guitars would likely sound a bit underwhelming, which might sound a bit jarring, especially if you’re listening with a pair of headphones. Here’s a quick solo I wrote to demonstrate:

*Solo plays without FX* (06:35)

*Solo plays with FX* (06:45)

Conclusion (07:01)

All-in-all I think Urumbu is a fantastic song, with great guitars, groovy drums and really great production. I recommend checking it out, and also listening to more of Thaikkudam’s music, all of which you can find on Spotify and other streaming sites. If you’re interested in the lyrics, and don’t read Malayalam, I have linked a translation that I referenced to the bottom of the blog page, alongside a website to learn to play the song on guitar or piano, if you’re interested.

And with that, we’ve come to the end of the episode. If you enjoyed this review, do like, follow, and share this episode with those close to you. Do also let me know your thoughts about the episode via Instagram or YouTube; the links to my socials are pasted at the bottom of this website. My name is Adithya, and I’ve really enjoyed having you on this episode of ‘Alt of Ideas’. See you next time!

Episode Audio

Credits & Resources

1. Lyrics & Translation

2. Chords & Tabs

3. Urumbu Song

4. Thaikkudam Bridge Website

All audio in this episode, excluding the song "Dame Tu Cosita" is recorded and produced by me. I do not own the rights to any of the compositions or audio pertaining to the song "Urumbu" by Thaikkudam Bridge, or "Dame Tu Cosita" by El Chombo.