The music for the musical romantic drama television series Bandish Bandits created by Amritpal Singh Bindra and Anand Tiwari for Amazon Prime Video featured two soundtracks for two seasons. The first season featured music composed by the trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy and released under Sony Music India label on 27 July 2020, while the second season featured music by multiple composers, and released through T-Series on 21 November 2024.
Season 1
Development The trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy were announced as the composer for the series in February 2019. Bandish Bandits was their maiden composition for a web series. Owing to the musical premise, the composers created a variety of songs such as bandish, thumri, tarana, dohas, as well as classical, folk, pop, electronic and instrumental songs providing a blend of tradition and contemporary.
The trio added that they had got chances to work on classical and semi-classical music, as Shankar Mahadevan being trained with Hindustani and Carnatic music traditions, while Ehsaan Noorani's understanding of western music being a guitarist and Loy Mendonsa's abilities as a multi-instrumentalist helped in synchronizing the variety of music. They collaborated with Rajasthani folk musicians for working on the songs. The composer trio worked on the songs even before lockdown as they had pre-recorded all the musical pieces before filming owing to its role in the narrative. The album was released on 27 July 2020.
Reception The soundtrack album received positive response from critics. Devarsi Ghosh of Scroll.in opined that "The blend of easy-listening pop and soaring semi-classical tunes brings to mind the trio's vast body of work". Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion praised the album as a "magnificent east-meets-west soundtrack". Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog hailed as "one of the best soundtracks in Hindi in recent times" calling it an "effortless encore" of their classical compositions for Katyar Kaljat Ghusali (2015). Vipin Nair of Music Aloud reviewed as "a solid piece of work, despite noty being an extraordinary work by the trio (Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa), when it comes to classical fusion".
Track listing
Accolades AwardDate of ceremonyCategoryNomineeResultFilmfare OTT Awards19 December 2021Best Original Soundtrack (Series)Shankar–Ehsaan–LoyBest Background Score (Series)Souumil Shringarpure
Season 2
Development Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, however did not return to the second season, though two of their songs from the first season were re-used and modified. Akashdeep Sengupta composed the musical score and supervised and curated the 17-track album. Sengupta added that the trio had blessed him on working on the project, who added that they had an 18 month duration to create the entire album. The second season had a different premise focusing on the battle of the bands between the East and West thereby blending Indian classical and Western contemporary music. He added a lot of attention went on developing the album and involved a variety of composers to provide a color, style and diversity to the sounds.
OAFF–Savera, Meghdeep Bose, Siddharth Pandit, Ana Rehman, Souumil Shringarpure, Siddharth Mahadevan, Prithvi Gandharv, Amit Sharma and DigV were enlisted to create individual songs while maintaining a unified sound to the album. The artists worked on the same recording studio to ensure real-time interaction and an immersive listening experience, while adding that the sound engineers and producers had a crucial role in editing the sessions into "cohesive, harmonious pieces". The season also included callbacks from the songs from the previous season, though managed it with different arrangements and instrumentation. The soundtrack was released on 21 November 2024.
Reception Deepa Gahlot of Rediff.com wrote "In the end, music is the saving grace, and the singers deserve all credit." Suchin Mehrotra of The Hollywood Reporter India wrote "while it isn’t Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy behind the album this time, music supervisor Akashdeep Sengupta and his armada of talented composers step up to the plate admirably and deliver another foot-tapping, soulful soundtrack." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV "The music of Bandit Bandish S2—one pivotal number is drawn from what Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy composed for Season 1—is undeniably brilliant". Zinia Bandyopadhyay of India Today claimed that the second season's oundtrack "soars notches higher" than the first season while further adding "be it the composers or the singers, every track harmoniously fits into the narrative while standing out in itself". Sugandha Rawal of Hindustan Times wrote "The musical contributions are noteworthy and recapture the enchanting melodies that made the first chapter memorable."
Track listing
Accolades AwardDate of ceremonyCategoryNomineeResultFilmfare OTT Awards26 November 2023Best Music Album (Series)Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, OAFF–Savera, Meghdeep Bose, Siddharth Pandit, Ana Rehman, Souumil Shringarpure, Siddharth Mahadevan, Prithvi Gandharv, Amit Sharma, DigVBest Background Score (Series)Akashdeep Sengupta
References