Coke Studios Season 4 goes in the studios for recording...a rare leaked audio release on KoolMuZone website

Coke Studio is what Pakistani music buffs wait in the summer season every year. This year is definitely going to be a make or break year for Coke Studio Pakistan Franchise as the show gears up to meet its potential on international front. The news are already pouring in that famous and world renowned contemporary Indian musician Rabbi Shergill has entered in the coke studios for this season and Coke India is planning launch of Coke Studio India Franchise. It is also being speculated that entire Coke Studio Pakistan entourage might launch a world tour at the end of season 4 to highlight diversity of Pakistani performing arts.It is perhaps the only news item coming out of Pakistan in the past few years that has always generated positive vibes for Pakistan. A brilliant effort by any means.

The good news is that coke studio has started recording for this season and a very secret leak of the recordings has been acquired by well renowned Pakistani music website www.koolmuzone.com. The leak is an audio file of jam session of "The Sketches" featuring Faheem Allan Fakeer (son of legendary Allan Faqeer). The audio file is available at http://www.koolmuzone.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/The-Sketches-Hik-Insan-Coke-Studio-Season-4-Raw-Leak.mp3. If this kind of music is being part of season 4, I am more than willing to leave everything behind to become a couch potato and watch every single episode of Coke Studio this year. So, my recommendation for this summer, another dose of Coke Studio.

PS: Watch out for a couple of very good Pakistani movies such as BOL (Speak Out) by Shoaib Mansoor and Gidh (Vultures) by Shamoon Abbasi apart from World Music Festival from Rafi Peer Group. After a long pause, I believe this year will again be the year of Pakistani arts.

End Year Blues...2010

So the year is approaching to its end finally...and it is freezing too...A dry freezing December to cap all the warmth and buzz of 2010. A strange cap indeed. But the year has been phenomenal to say the least for me and those surrounding me. Phenomenal but not always positively phenomenal. So a recap of year from my lenses.

Professionally year was quite good. A lot of friends graduated with their PhD degrees in the year. Universities gave a very warm reception to all of us. Almost everyone is engaged in some kind of positive work to contribute towards betterment of the nation. Mercifully none of us proved to be greedy to choose greener pastures and stayed back home happily. We got some wonderful colleagues and students who will be our pride for all our lives. First of our friends headed for his next big achievement as Dr. Arfan Jaffar is now pursuing his Post-Doc in South Korea.

The relationships started scattering with elders, colleagues and friends drifting away and away as their careers and lives led them to different paths. As the tide turns smoother and we look back at how 2010 started and ended...the nostalgia become immense to bear. Lives became less about interaction and more about inter-connectivity. That is funny indeed...

Nationally, the chaos prevailed which has become our hallmark. Here in Pakistan, we have started to wonder if we will be able to survive one non-chaotic, routine and peaceful day? As mentioned 3 months ago, time to bet on Pakistani politics is on and is gaining momentum. More and more fault lines are appearing with mainstream political establishments losing ground, meaningless populist activism taking hold and corruption becoming norm rather than exception.

On the front of arts, Coke Studio this year was disappointment for many but in my case, it was again instrumental in reinventing Arif Lohar, Tina Sani and Karavan...I will be uploading my three best recordings of this year's Coke Studio on 31st December so keep looking for that. And yes...SYMT was an encouraging find of the year in my personal opinion. Internationally, music also seemed in a sort of hibernation to me as no major attractions appeared at least for me there. About theater and cinema...the least said the better. Except for Inception, I don't think anything worth mentioning appeared. On local front Dabangg was noteworthy as it changed the whole equation despite its totally idiotic script and more idiotic acting. Times are becoming more and more strange.

And the biggest of all was not Mark Zuckerberg and the face book...It was also not the oil spills of America and Eurofreeze...It was also not the commonwealth games in India or Football world cup in South Africa...In my opinion, the year will be remembered for all times to come as the one that changed our whole perception about media, diplomacy and LEAKS. WIKILEAKS is perhaps the most significant event of 2010. And as the decade is coming to an end... I will rate WIKILEAKS aming the five greatest things of this past decade. Perhaps very close to the history changing event of 9/11 bombings of WTC that happened in 2001. Julian Assange and WIKILEAKS have made 2010 an immortal year in history.

So the year is coming to its end...decade is coming to its end and it is a freezing December. Enjoy the year end blues. Enjoy the top 10 lists of everything in 2010 published by Time magazine on the following link (Courtesy Time Magazine) :

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2035319,00.html