“Three chapters. Three geographies. Three different producers.” Sitting in a Goan cafe on New Year’s Day 2023, Anoushka Shankar scribbled out the key tenets of her latest project—a trilogy of “mini-albums,” each anchored in one of the places the sitarist and composer has called home. There was just one other ground rule. She promised herself that she would enter the studio without a roadmap in place, fully open to all possibilities.
That blank slate represented a risky approach. All of Shankar’s most notable releases, beginning with 2005’s Rise—her first non-classical album, and her first as a composer—have been marked by stylistic experimentation grounded by a strong narrative framework. Ripping up the blueprint that she’d stuck to for almost 20 years was a gamble.
But the approach paid off, resulting in Shankar’s most emotionally resonant and stylistically innovative body of work yet. Each release in the triptych exists within a distinctive sound-world, shaped by its specific location, emotional contours, and collaborators. Their only connecting thread—apart from Shankar and her sitar—is a loosely-defined day-night cycle, denoted by the use of time-specific ragas. But considered all together, a compelling emotional arc emerges. Chapter I: Forever, For Now is a stirring exploration of finding joy even in the throes of personal trauma, sparked by the memory of a rare afternoon spent with her kids in the garden of her London home. The moody drones, sepulchral reverb, and twilight-hued sitar of Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn, meanwhile, evoke the Pacific Ocean at night—a sanctuary for introspection and healing.
The series’ final instalment, Chapter III: We Return to Light, moves us into the dew-washed sunshine of a fresh day. Wounds have been licked, demons exorcised. The long, difficult night has left its scars, but the emotional trajectory is now aimed upwards and onwards. This renewed sense of purpose is most audible in the return of percussion: Time, largely kept at bay in the first two chapters, resumes its onward march, as wistful reverie gives way to movement and action.
Opener “Daybreak” sets the scene, sun-dappled sitar tracing languid loops over Alam Khan’s sarod, before Sarathy Korwar’s feather-light percussion brings in a sense of urgency and forward momentum. “Dancing on Scorched Earth” layers crunchy, low-octave sitar riffs over a funky backbeat, conjuring visions of the nocturnal Goa forest raves that Shankar frequented in her 20s. Leaning even further into those Goa trance influences, “We Burn So Brightly” is a fever-dream of oscillating drones, tropical drums, and frantic sitar shred. If Shiva ever landed up on a contemporary dance floor to dance the tandava—a divine dance of creation and destruction—this is what I imagine would play in the background.
