Siddhartha Ghosh is from Assam and is an independent composer/producer. He seems to fill a space perfectly on his single ‘Cirque Du Sulal’ (a great play on the name, by the bye), which is pretty much something that would score the establishing shot of a Discovery Channel documentary on how urban life is ruining the environment. It has the motifs, the sense of scale and that sort of tinge of importance in its sound that instantly spawns thoughts of things that are ‘bigger than us’. And well, considering it’s a pandemic song with a pandemic-shot video, those are pretty much what all of us have been thinking about for the last year anyway.

The sounds are a mixture of electronic elements and ambient elements from Colombo, which is also depicted in the video. There are some really rootsy and personality-filled instruments that live on the more ethnic side, which are either set behind or against a bunch of synths, the repeating motif that pretty much carries the track, and some percussion. That motif is probably intended to be repetitive from a sort of trance-like point of view given the song’s whole idea of wanting to show how one-note and boring our lives sometimes are. Even the little Tamil vocal sample at the end speaks about how we just go around in circles living dry-as-dust lives and other cheerful thoughts about the human condition. What is quite funny about ‘Cirque Du Sulal’ is that its instrumental palate and Siddhartha’s composing chops actually achieve something that’s the opposite; the song is rather vibrant and grand in scope. There’s actually some hope that seems to be baked into this, and that is a pleasure to listen to. Queue up your favourite documentary and have a blast.