Kumbalangi Nights

Kumbalangi Nights is the soundtrack album for the 2019 Malayalam-language drama film of the same name. The film, directed by Madhu C. Narayanan in his directorial debut, features musical score composed by Sushin Shyam with the soundtrack accompanied for the film has seven songs in number. The Malayalam lyrics were penned by Anwar Ali and Vinayak Sasikumar, while the English songs featured in the album were penned by Nezer Ahamed, Shyam's bandmate in The Down Troddence rock musical band. Shyam, Sithara Krishnakumar, Sooraj Santhosh, Anne Amie, Kezia Quintal (K.Zia), Akhil Unnikrishnan AKEL and Yadav gave vocals for the tracks featured in the album. The soundtrack is influenced by Italian music and consisted of various genres and moods being incorporated. It was released on 21 January 2019 by the film production company, Bhavana Studios, which distributed and released the film and its soundtrack in their first production venture. The score and album received unanimous positive response from critics, appreciating Sushin Shyam for his compositions and tunes, while being considered as his career's best and Shyam won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Music Director for his work in the film. Background and production According to Shyam, composing for the Kumbalangi Nights' soundtrack was challenging; he was unsure about the need of songs in the film's screenplay, considering Madhu's filmmaking, since he earlier assisted Dileesh Pothan in Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (2017). Sushin's work in the film was different from the previous films as during the story discussions with Madhu, the complete storyline was not narrated within one shot, but a step-by-step narration of particular situations as per script development. "Cherathukal" was the first song that was narrated to Shyam initially and was recorded within a single take. The songs went through several improvisations to accommodate the changes in the script.