MUSIC DIRECTOR PRAVIN MANI INTERVIEW

We`ve been friends for about 30 years. We were the only ones into computers at that time, and audio engineering and all the technical stuff. So we hit it off based on that, and then I went to Australia and he transformed into AR Rahman! He came to Australia in 1995 during Indian, and he invited me to come jam with him. So even after I moved to Canada in 1998, I kept going back to India to work with him. We did 'Shakalaka Baby', 'Jumbalakka', 'Oh Maria' and 'Endrendrum Punnagai', and you know it just kept going on, it didn`t stop. And I kept travelling!

We never looked at each other as competitors.  He was in the [Tamil film] industry more than me, whereas I was always more in the western scene; that`s why when I work with him the sound is a little different. He just tells me ``freak out`` and I freak out.

Ai has been radical, I think it's going to be a kick-ass album, it`s going to be a groundbreaker. Shankar and Rahman have always created something different. 

Enthiran was a radical movie where Shankar kind of went into science fiction. But with Ai he's taken an even more different turn. It's got great singers, every song is brilliant. AR is going to take Tamil music through another change with this album. I can see the songs just taking off.
 

I was called to finish the project. I worked on it for about two months; everything was done and there were a few ancillaries to be recorded and some corrections to be done. It'll still come back to me. Tweaks will keep happening until the film comes out...and sometimes after all the time we spend tweaking we end up going back to the original!