Recorded in Scotland, the music of Gultoo blends Indian, Western styles

When the first-look of the upcoming

Kannada

film

Gultoo

—produced by

Prasant Reddy

and

Devaraj Ramanna

under the Vivid Films banner — was released, everyone’s curiousity was piqued thanks to the creative poster. And the creativity of the makers is not restricted to the look of the film alone. It was during the planning stages itself that director Janardhan Chikkanna and music director

Amit Anand

decided that the songs would be recorded at a studio in

Scotland

, since Amit studied music there.

Speaking about the music, Janardhan says, “Amit and I share great rapport. We don’t work with any references. Amit experiments a lot and doesn’t stick to formulas. He’s from a family of musicians, so he is strongly influenced by Indian and Carnatic music. His Western classical music influence comes from his stint at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He’s balanced these styles out well and blended them together beautifully.”

For Amit, the freedom to compose music for the film was liberating, but daunting as well. “Scoring music for Gultoo has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The album has five tracks, each with a distinct sound. I have got good response for the songs in Scotland, and it was satisfying to know that the songs, although in Kannada, were still appealing to Western ears. At the same time, the songs have a nativity to them, which, I believe, has helped me connect with Kannada audience as well,” adds Amit.