Mekaal Hassan Band: Sampooran Album Review and Download

Mekaal Hassan Band: Sampooran Album Review and Download

Mekaal Hassan Band’s Sampooran album remains one of the most exceptional and distinct albums, blending different influences such as Jazz, Sufi music, Punjabi folk and Alternative rock. It is difficult to put genre to such music but tracks such as Rabba, Sajan and Sanwal are heavily based on south Asian classic raags, but played on western bass and guitars as well as Indian Bansuri [flute], tabla and dholak.

Meekal Hassan was quite experimental in his approach. When he formed his band, Lahore music scene was already buzzing with heavy weights such as Junoon.

 

 

Mekaal was a musical prodigy and besides being a gifted guitar player, he also studied Berkeley College of Music, Boston, which is renowned for one of the finest places to actually study music. His upbringing at Lahore and inspiration from Punjabi poets such as Bulleh Shah and Shah Hussain

Rabba , based on Kalam of Hazrat Shah Hussain, was the first music video from the album, which played on MTV Asia and Pakistani music channels of the time. It was an extremely eccentric video for the time on which a person with a globe made of newspapers on his head roams around in androon Lahore. It was philosophical in its interpretation as a person that seems different from society tried to eat at restaurants gazed by eyes everywhere.

Sajan and Sanwal were similar in their emotion, both Punjabi folks songs about love and longing. Waris Shah, a beautiful poem by Amrita Pritam on partition of 1947, was another haunting song. Although MBH band was named after Mekaal, Jawad Bashir’s immaculate classic singing needs a lot of appreciation as these songs required extraordinary vocal abilities. It is no coincidences that most of acclaimed songs under MBH band were sung by Jawad Bashir.

 

 

Sampooran and Late Moon were Jazzy with ample guitar riffs as well as Pappu’s amazing flute work. Darbari was a raag based track, which again showed how deep Mekaal Hassan eastern influences were. Ya Ali was a Manqabat in glory of Hazrat Ali Murtaza and has Patiala gharana style of composition.

Mekaal Hassan Studio in Lahore [Digital Fidelity] was burned to ashes due to a fire incident recently. There has been various appeals from leading artists to donate and raise funds to rebuilt it.

We wish Mekaal Hassan the very best in restoring this iconic studio, which has launched so many superstars such as Atif Aslam, Jal,  Zeb & Haniya and more.

Visit the links for each track to download Mekaal Hassan Band tracks in MP3 format.