Varuna

Right off the bat I have to tell you that when I first heard this song I was like “yeah okay, not impressed” but with most music out there I have to give myself a chance to warm up to it. I don’t just drop songs on my playlist if I’m not impressed by it, it doesn’t need to bowl me over but it has to make an impression. That being said, the more I gave myself a chance to warm up to this piece by E.S. Posthumus entitled “Varuna” the more I loved it (and of course it made the playlist). I was already a fan of previous works by them like “Cuzco” and “Nara” which is theme to the CBS show “Cold Case” off of their album Unearthed. So when I heard they were working on something knew I couldn’t wait to hear it.

E. S. Posthumus was comprised of two brothers, Helmut and Franz Vonlichten until Franz passed away earlier this year but along with his brother they’ve left behind some amazing music. Their sound is taking classical influences and fusing it with modern day percussion and a perfect example of that was their remix of Jay-Z’s “Run This Town” feat Rihanna. I purchased Makara unheard based on their earlier works and I wasn’t disappointed. The previous works could almost be described as gentle. Lush movements and beautiful melodies was what would come to expect from E. S. but Makara was a complete shift in sound from that. It was an album full of powerful and aggressive tracks and in my opinion the one that exemplifies that the most is Varuna.

Makara had other tracks that stood out to me like "Unstoppable" which was used in the Sherlock Holmes movie trailer and "Arise" which was used by CBS Sports as the intro to the AFC Championship game earlier this year. And like I said earlier it took a few listens for me to come around but the more I listened the more I grew to love this track above all the others. Varuna is fire from the start and it plows on unforgiving. It doesn’t open gently at all, the beat and the orchestra both come in all at once and it stays that way straight through the song. The music builds, rises, and falls and all the while never giving the listener a real chance to catch a breath. And just when you think it’s going to sound the same for the entire 4:17 the voices comes in and adds an extra dramatic effect. This is a great song to work out to, walk to, run to, and even clean to and with this song propelling you, you’ll be done before you know it.