Thanks Ika for starting this topic. As I said earlier the music of Powder was recorded much earlier. There is a story behind every piece that was created, of how it evolved through the discussion between me and the music director Vipin Mishra and how we use each music piece and its various stems.
To begin with I'll tell you something about the piece that you like the most - Face To Face.
The idea of the melody of Face To Face came from a small music piece created by R.D. Burman. Yes you read it right, the great music director. In the 1975 film Deewar R.D. Burman created a small piece and used it for a very small moment in a big scene.
Before I tell you which scene, I must tell you why Deewar.
While writing Powder I somewhat wanted to tribute Salim-Javed and their two great scripts - Sholay and Deewar - in a way about the aura that they created around their characters and the doom they were headed towards.
So when it came to picking one music piece that will have a reference to Usmaan and Ansari's past, I asked Vipin to listen to the piece from Dewaar which plays when Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor met under the bridge (remember the famous scene that had the dialog Mere Paas Maa Hai). The music piece kicks in after Shahsi Kapoor says Mujrim Bhai Ka Bhes badal ke bol raha hai and stays on roughly for 60 seconds thereafter.
I asked Vipin to create the same texture of past. The same of late seventies. Around the time when Usmaan and Ansari would have juts started out, when they were young in their respective fields, a time where they hadn't met. They would meet 10 years later. But their formative years lay back in late seventies, the peak of gold and electronic smuggling. Apart from the texture of seventies, the piece also had tragedy and feel of drifting apart, mood of differences creeping in.
Vipin studied the piece and came with an original melody, which in a note or two makes a fleeting reference to the original.
If you hear Face To Face from the audio file and Deewar's piece you will understand the creation at play.
Cheers
Atul :)