Anoushka Shankar’s most daring chapter yet: “I feel like I'm in my power”

At the end of January, Anoushka Shankar published a live video of her performing ‘New Dawn’ at the De Singel Arts Centre in Antwerp. It’s the closing track from her Chapter II: How Dark it is Before Dawn (2024) mini-album. In this live rendition, it begins in a similar fashion with swirls of ambient drones and Anoushka’s sitar unwinding the melody… but then it erupts. Whereas the recording was just her, for this live performance, she has a band, announced by a pulsing beat on the tom drum that gives the melody sudden urgency, before clarinet, bass, percussion and even more drums enter the frame as the song builds and builds, the musicians locked in and pushing each other to greater heights. There was an uneasy calm, an unsure hope perhaps, on the recorded version, but here there are moments of rapture, the adrenaline is pulsating, that ‘new dawn’ has never looked so promising.

It’s the perfect precursor to Anoushka’s latest release, Chapter III: We Return to Light, the final part in her trilogy of mini-albums. The first, Chapter I: Forever, For Now (2023), felt like the end of the day, the light folding below the horizon, life winding down. Chapter II: How Dark it is Before Dawn was an experimental album with Anoushka creating ambient drones to accompany herself on sitar. It was a moment to recuperate, regroup and re-energise. It perfectly leads to this latest chapter, in which she has teamed up with sarod player Alam Khan and multi-instrumentalist Sarathy Korwar. It is both a return to home – there are ragas which Anoushka and Alam Khan’s fathers (Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan) used to play together – as well as a radical reimagining of her oeuvre through extraordinary hypnotic rhythms inspired by going to trance clubs in Goa in the early 2000s.

In a remarkable career that began with her first public performance 30 years ago, this feels like Anoushka’s boldest release to date, and she speaks with unbridled excitement about taking her new music on the road with her current group. “Each person in that band has a genius skill level and is able to just travel and improvise and hold space in the most incredible way, so it feels magical to be on stage with them,” she says. “We’ve been doing Chapters I, II and III as one cohesive story, and that’s what I’m touring all of this year.”

She is also the guest director at this year’s Brighton Festival, where her New Dawn theme will usher in an eclectic, hand-picked programme: “I’m really proud of what Brighton Festival helped me do”, she beams. “I just can’t believe we got so many people on my wishlist – within a week, we’ve got Nadine Shah, ganavya, Arooj Aftab and Amadou & Mariam.” At Brighton Festival, she will also be performing her trilogy of albums with that extraordinary new band, presenting Brown Girl in the Ring (“it’s going to be an incredible night of South Asian females”) and performing one of her favourite pieces, Passages.

What was the impetus for this trilogy?

I feel like any good thing comes out of a limitation. So, I came out of a whole year of fussing about not knowing what I wanted to write about, having no ideas and pressuring myself more and more and coming up with nothing. And then, finally, I was at a cafe on New Year’s Day in Goa while my kids were asleep, and I just had a moment of calm. Suddenly, it felt really simple where [I realised] I’m agonising too much, thinking too hard… I’m blocking creativity. How do I make it simple? And in that moment, I just thought, not one big album, you’re not trying to make an opus, split it up, do three parts, allow yourself to be as simple as possible. Get in a room with musicians you want to work with, start with a blank slate and allow creativity to happen.

How did you then map out the different chapters?

My only sense of what [having three parts] meant was to touch on my three geographies [Europe, North America and India]. I scribbled a couple of names that ended up becoming song titles, but other than that, it all came from starting. There was nothing else on my mind other than to use different collaborators each time and not to plan too much. I reached out to Arooj [Aftab] and asked her to produce the first chapter because we had just recently done a song on her album. I was really drawn to the kind of space and simplicity with which she allows music to tell a story.

With Chapter I, it was when we were in the studio that ideas started to crystallise. I wanted to make music about something very private and very tender but find a way to get it into my music without necessarily having to talk about what it was, and we settled on trying to capture the feeling of when you’re going through something really difficult and all you have is moments. Not to be cheesy, but the sun might just come through the clouds suddenly, and in that moment, it’s possible to feel happy. Even if you’re not happy, we have to fully embrace and experience that moment of happiness, joy and presence. So that started crystallising into an idea of being in an English summer garden; it’s transient and fleeting and beautiful, but it’s also beautiful because it can leave at any moment, and that’s why we appreciate it so much. So, I started digging into some evening ragas to lean into sunset.

Anoushka recording Chapter III: We Return to Light

That set the blueprint for the rest, where I was like, okay, so Chapter I led us to sunset. Now, here I am in California, and this [Chapter II] is about the night. What does the Pacific Ocean feel like in the night? Can it feel like a deep embrace? Can it feel like a place of womb-like healing? What does that sound like in my music? So that led me to play with the sound of the sitar in a way I never have before, stripping it down into these soundscapes. Chapter II has a lot of textures and ambience that are all coming out of the sitar. I wanted it to be a place of healing, a place of pause. Stuff happened in the world through that year as well, where I started to think this isn’t just personal; it’s collective. We, as people, need a collective pause, we need a collective regroup, a reorientation towards an act of healing rather than an act of destruction, which is why I called it How Dark it is Before Dawn because I thought we have to hold on to that seed of hope that, everywhere around us, there is proof that cycles happen. So even when we’re in the trenches, light is coming, a new day is coming, which then led to Chapter III, where I had a clear idea. We’re in that place. It might be utopian or fantasy, but we’re in that place, we’ve healed, the sun has come out, you’re at a rave in Goa, it’s bright, the alchemy has happened and we’re in that place of light and strength.

With Chapter III, you mainly worked with Alam Khan and Sarathy Korwar. Had you worked with either of them before?

I wanted to work with Alam because there was this idea of travelling around the world through the first two chapters and coming back to the source on the third chapter. I wanted it to be India referential and Alam and I had never worked together. I really trust the world, you know? Alam and I were texting about some other stuff and I just trusted my instincts and said, ‘Hey, do you want to do this thing?’ We both seemed to be in a place in our lives where it felt like the right time to work together because we both [knew] our own musical identities enough to collaborate from that place. We might choose to reference our heritage, but we’re not thinking from that place in an over-weighted way. But then I felt very aware that Alam and I in a room together would be two string instruments being very melody-heavy and could get a bit lost, so I knew we needed a third person to round it up. And Sarathy, at that point, even though he and I had never recorded together, he’s been part of the live band for the last three years while I’ve been making and touring this music. So, he and I have gotten closer and closer, and I trusted our on-stage relationship enough to say he’s the third person on this. And I have always loved his music and how he makes music as well, of course.

On the track ‘We Return to Love’, you incorporate the ‘Manj Khamaj’ raga, which your and Alam’s fathers used to play in concert. How did that come about?

‘Manj Khamaj’ is a very strong raga in our musical families. As teenagers, Alam and I had our first dinner together, and we talked about that raga. We both had a deep, deep love for it. He was poking fun at me because I said it always made me cry without fail, even when I was playing it myself. He’s like, ‘You make yourself cry when you’re playing’, and I was like, ‘Well, no, it’s the raga’, and so we both knew that we loved it so much, and it was something our fathers had played together so it just felt like that was the return to the source at the end of the whole cycle.

Was it fun including ragas like that in the context of this record, as there are moments that sound far from Indian classical music?
What was interesting about this whole process is that much of the time, when I work in what I would call a crossover space, it’s usually about [creating a] bridge between myself and what I do and where I come from and someone from a different culture, country or musical background. This was a very unusual situation for me of making that crossover, experimental music, but with people who have the same first language and background as me. So, to work with Alam, where we’d suddenly lock eyes and be able to switch into that, in a native way, was quite unusual and felt poignant. And Sarathy, as well, because his music has never been classical, but he’s so informed by Indian classical music and folk music of all regions. And so again, it was that same language where we’d go into something and it was just very instinctive for him to play the groove that complements that, whereas usually working with a different drummer from a different space, that may not happen quite the same way. It’ll still be beautiful in a different way and I enjoy that, but there was something different about this.

You say that the album was inspired by Goa trance. What can you tell us about Goa trance and how it influenced the record?

Well, I don’t listen to it now, and I’m sure, like any form of electronic music, it’s evolved hugely since I was really into it in the early 2000s. But for me, at the time, unlike a lot of electronic music, it seemed to have a deeper kernel to it where, not all the time, but being on a dance floor didn’t feel like it was just about having a party or having a good time; the atmosphere felt more transcendent or more spiritual. It felt like a collective element of finding another side of myself and another route in music to spirituality outside of the classical music I’d grown up with. It shocked me to be in such a disparate atmosphere. This isn’t sitting and being introverted and very sanctified about music. It’s about being wild and stomping and being in a group and being with peers. And yet there was still something that was the same: about getting lost within something. I always had a fondness for how important it was in my twenties to have that outlet where I’d leave my touring sitar world and be off in Goa for two months and just be losing it. It was a big part of my life for a while. With this album, it was about capturing the energy and the feeling of what it used to give me and trying to put that into our music.

Let’s talk a little about Brighton Festival, which has such an amazing line-up. In particular, I wanted to ask you about your decision to perform Passages.

It’s only the third time that that album by my father and Philip Glass has been performed live. We did a premiere at the [BBC] Proms in 2017 and then did a show in Paris two years later. And so, when I was curating this, I just said, ‘Look, it’s a really tricky and ambitious show to put together because it’s a full orchestra, choir, Indian classical ensemble, but if there’s any way that we could do it, it would be incredible.’ That album, Passages, means a lot to me. I think it’s a really special album, so people get to hear it in its full, performed from start to finish.

Why’s that one so special?

It’s one of the great early examples of collaboration and a cross-cultural meeting. They did it in an unusual way. There are six tracks on the album, and they gave each other two themes each. My dad wrote two short themes, gave them to Philip, Philip wrote two themes, gave them to my dad, and they each went away and elaborated on the other person’s theme into their own piece, and then wrote one completely of their own each. So, it’s almost like there’s just a seed of Philip in my dad’s sound and a seed of my dad in Philip’s sound, and you can hear it in there, yet each piece is so strong because they’ve just really gone for it. I just think it’s incredible music, and I was eight or nine years old when they were recording it, so I remember being in the studio as well, so I have that extra attachment to it.

Your career started in 1998 with the release of your debut album…

Actually, it was 1995 [that my career started]. Weirdly, I’ve woken up all emotional because today is the 30th anniversary of my first ever show when I was 13 years old.

So, is that the show at Siri Fort in New Delhi, with Zakir Hussain? Do you remember it well?

I remember it vividly. I mean, my biggest memory is actually the moment going onto stage because I thought something was wrong with me, because it was the first time I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I thought that meant I was going to be sick or have a heart attack or something. I didn’t know what it meant. Obviously, as an adult, I now know that when you’re scared, your adrenaline goes, and you can feel your heartbeat. But I remember just standing backstage thinking, ‘What’s happening?’ I remember being terrified. Zakir was the one who helped me more than anyone else because he’d been in very similar situations. He was in his 40s then, but he said, ‘Look, I did my debut when I was 11. I was on stage with Ali Akbar Khan. I had to accompany him, and this is how we do it.’ There was just something about hearing someone else say, ‘I did this, I got through it, I’m here now.’ It was sweet. As soon as my solo was over, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And then it felt fun because it was actually my dad’s 75th birthday celebration concert.

You’ve won so many awards and had honorary memberships throughout your career. Is there one in particular that meant a huge amount to you out of all of those?

My first Grammy nomination [for Live at Carnegie Hall] is really memorable because it was so out of the blue. I was 20 when the nomination news came in, and it was the same year that my sister [Norah Jones] got all her nominations for Come Away With Me. I was actually on holiday with some people, quite remote in a forest in Brazil. And I made it a point to find a landline to call my parents because I knew the day of the nominations, and I was like, ‘Did she get nominated?’ And they were like, ‘Yes, she got eight nominations.’ And I started screaming, and they said, ‘But wait, you got nominated too.’ I was like, ‘What?!’ I was just in this forest in Brazil, screaming at trees. It was mental, disjointed and incredible. So that’s memorable. I would also say a couple of things here in the UK. I got made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music a few years ago, and there are only 300 living honorary members at any point. That felt like a huge recognition of something beyond a particular album; it’s more for a career or a musical identity. And the same with the Oxford Doctorate. It’s not something I went seeking or looking for; no one submitted an album, but it’s come from somewhere, and it feels surreal and beautiful.

The theme of this year’s Brighton Festival is New Dawn, which is also the name of one of your recent songs. Is that title a statement of where you are or where you want to be?

In a collective sense, it’s about where I want us to be. We all have to cling to hope. I didn’t know where things were going to go by the time we reached this festival, so it now feels more pertinent than ever. Still, I feel simultaneously that, coming back to what I said in Chapter I: in any given moment, we are creating, we are in the light, we are in the strength, even if it’s just for a moment because it happens and that goes out into the world in some way that I believe makes a difference. However, we need a very, very, very big tide of that now quite desperately. So, in a collective sense, it’s more about reaching out for hope and feeling like we’re already there. But in a personal sense, I feel like I’m there right now, touch wood, it feels like I’ve come through quite a few things. It’s always scary to say that because I feel like the sky’s going to fall down, but I feel like I’m in my power in a certain way right now that maybe also feels to do with being a woman in my early 40s, there’s something magical about this little window where it’s just so nice.