“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.
Spiritual renewal on the dance floor and the blissful optimism of the morning comedown, then, are Chapter III’s dominant themes. But as much as this is a record about forward momentum, it’s also one about legacy. Shankar and Khan are the heirs of two of India’s most legendary musical figures—sitar virtuoso Pandit Ravi Shankar and sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, friends and collaborators who were instrumental in exporting Indian classical music to the world. It’s inevitable that, when they finally made music together, these two musical scions would have to grapple with that shared heritage.
On “Hiraeth,” the record’s positivity and slow-burn joy gives way to bone-deep yearning. Shankar’s sitar is plaintive and melancholic, while Khan’s backwards sarod lines radiate a sense of steel-edged unease. The track’s title is borrowed from a Welsh word that describes a feeling of irretrievable loss. The musicians never quite spell out the object of their hiraeth, but they do leave a little bread crumb—Shankar plays in Raga Palas Kafi, created by her father.
And then there’s the ambient-classical closer “We Return to Love,” its twinned sitar and sarod melodies floating in gentle, elegant loops over delicate tabla rhythms and a meditative modal drone. The song is based on “Raga Manj Khamanj,” made famous by Shankar and Khan’s fathers, who would often play it at the end of concerts and recordings.
In less self-assured hands, such a tribute would be dragged down by the weight of its own symbolism. But these two musicians—aided ably by Korwar—skillfully honor their shared heritage without being overshadowed. The track, and Chapter III as a whole, represents the clearest expression yet of Shankar’s vision for contemporary Indian music, where looking back and moving forward are not opposing forces but part of the same motion.
