Paharia Sur by Shaan, Iman Chakraborty

The Paharia Sur album has several strong tracks, but Paharia Sur is the one most listeners come back to first. What makes Paharia Sur musically distinctive is the composition by Joy Sarkar, which balances simplicity with depth.

Shaan, Iman Chakraborty inhabits this song completely, making every phrase feel like it was written specifically for this voice. Indrasish Roy, Samadorshi Dutta, Saurav Das, Parambrata, Murari M Rakshit, Subrajit Dutta, Saayoni Ghosh, Anindita Bose, Reema Sen are at the heart of Paharia Sur, and Paharia Sur captures their dynamic at its most compelling.

By the end of 2018, Paharia Sur had moved well beyond its original audience and into everyday playlists. There is a quality to Paharia Sur that makes it feel like company — the kind of song you put on when words feel insufficient.

Running to 4:04, the song is exactly as long as it needs to be, which is the hardest length for a songwriter to find. It is, simply, one of the better songs to come from Bengali in recent memory — and the numbers agree.