A quest for new sound - Habib feat. Shireen - Panjabiwala

A quest for new sound

After Shono! Habib is back with Panjabiwala featuring Shireen. Faizul Khan Tanim speaks to him about the album, his work and music

The celebrated artiste- singer and composer Habib is perhaps never short of coming up with exclusive and unique tracks. Following instant success of Shono! Habib is back this Eid with his much anticipated album ‘Panjabiwala’.
His collaboration with Shireen has certainly added to the quality of the album. The tune is simply tantalising and towards the beginning Shireen’s dreamy, yet boyish, voice with the verse Roshik telkajala, oi lal kurtawala…dili boro jala re panjabiwala…moves ones’ sensibilities. She has a deep accent which captures the baul essence very well.
Habib himself speaks of Shireen very highly. ‘There are two ways in which I can work with good music. One is by producing remixes or composing my own music and the other is when I find a great voice to collaborate with. When I first heard Shireen, I thought she has massive talent in her voice. I instantly knew that folk would best suit her energetic vocal tune’.
‘I met her around the same time as Kaya and Helal. She never had any professional training and her raw voice appealed to me’, he added.
While his debut, the second and the third albums were strictly jolly electronic compositions, in this album he broadens his scope to include elements of fresh, funky and easy beats. The tracks Shahjalal Shahporan and Na jene bhul bujhona are such tunes and are already huge hits in the audio market.
A studio engineer and musician by profession, Habib has recorded, mixed music and collaborated with artistes, produced audio albums and much more. He has remixed, re-made almost all sorts of tunes, from the Bauls of Bengal to the old Bengali classic hits. His sound production is vibrant, crisp and alive. With a good sound production experience under his belt of five studio albums, he is surely one of Bangladesh’s most highly skilled electronic musicians.
Habib thinks he has this overgrowing weakness towards folk music. ‘Since musicians like me don’t create folk music, the only way we can work with that genre is by creating interesting remixes. I think folk music should be known to all music enthusiasts and people of Bangladesh’.
In Panjabiwala, he has put a fresh catalogue of studio skills and has come up with another toffee of an album, capturing full scale sound effects with loud international quality production and Shireen’s voice - which is pure magnetism by itself.
But not all of Habib’s fans seem to have accepted this compilation like its ancestors. They felt that their expectation was not met. To this, Habib replied, ‘I made this album mainly for the mass audience and so will be my upcoming solo project. And honestly, there is this whole different level of satisfaction to work for a project which would be liked by most people’.
‘I strictly believe that it is high time to educate all our listeners with new sound so that they appreciate this new shift of compositions and try to grab them more affectionately’, Habib adds.
About the album, Habib stated that this album would appeal to most of his fans with the passage of time instead of an immediate ‘hit’ like his previous ones.