Odiyan (soundtrack)

Songs

Menon demanded five songs in the narrative, which should "capture the listener's imagination right away" and also should be distinct in its sound. Although he composed the tunes for the songs within five days,^[1] he had to make changes on the soundscape and treatment multiple times and took extreme care in the instrumentation. Hence, Jayachandran took nearly one-and-a-half years working on the film's songs.^[2] Albeit the songs being meant from periodic setting, Jayachandran wanted the music to sound fresh so that it would appeal modern listeners. Menon wanted the songs to have a folk touch as the film's story is based on a fairy tale and was familiar with the stories of Odiyan legend he heard during his childhood.^[2]

In June 2017, Mohanlal shared the behind-the-scenes video of the composing sessions at GreenPark hotel in Chennai with Jayachandran playing the tunes and lyricists Rafeeq Ahamed and Lakshmi Shrikumar were present.^[3][4] For the song "Kondoram", Ahamed wrote the lyrics after the tune was composed, and the lines resembled the style of dialogue writing.^[5] Recording took place at Musik Lounge Studio Chennai and New Edge Studios in Mumbai.^[6] Menon wanted Shreya Ghoshal and Shankar Mahadevan for performing the vocals for two songs. Ghoshal recorded female vocals for the duet "Kondoram" and the song "Maanam" during July 2017, with Jayachandran and Ahamed directing her on the pronunciations.^[7] Mahadevan recorded the song "Nenjile" in August 2017,^[8] which according to Jayachandran, was the "most challenging composition".^[2] M. G. Sreekumar recorded the song "Muthappante" the same month, who described it as the best song he recorded after a long time.^[2] In August 2018, a folk song "Enoruvan" was recorded with Mohanlal providing vocals for the song written by Varma.^[9]

Score

For the film's score, Menon chose Sam after he was impressed by his work in Vikram Vedha (2017),^[10] and he joined the film after the songs has already been composed.^[11] Composition of the film's score began in January 2018. Following his usual method, Sam composed the score beforehand based on the screenplay, contrary to the conventional method of scoring the filmed scenes during post-production.^[12] The musical score was then played while filming. Since the film had a period setting, old ethnic musical instruments of Kerala was utilised in the score, which includes an old bamboo instrument of six-feet length.^[11][13] An old lady was roped in for recording the instrument due to her expertise with it.^[14] The film's theme music was chosen from four themes composed by Sam.^[10] The re-recording of the score completed within 3 December 2018, few days before the film's release.^[15]