WORLD
BY DAVID HUTCHEON
Anoushka Shankar
★★★★
Chapter I: Forever, For Now
LEITER. DL/LP
First in a trilogy of mini-albums by a star having a purple patch.
Like her father, Ravi, the sitar player seems incapable of sitting still musically: last year she released Between Us… with the Metropole Orkest; a politically charged single, In Her Name; and shared a stage with Arooj Aftab (her playing elevates the resulting Live In London LP). Now, with Aftab in the producer’s chair and label owner Nils Frahm adding percussion, keyboards, harmonium and eerie glass harmonica, she returns to the Indian classical/electronica blend with which she started creating her own identity 20 years ago, her collaborators’ hands audible throughout. Daydreaming is a beautiful morning raga; What Will We Remember? would work superbly soundtracking a horror film. Shankar describes this as the first in an “evolving story”, a trilogy of more spontaneous work with different creative partners to be recorded between tours, rather than an LP’s grand, landmark statement. Can’t wait for Chapter II.