Chapter III We Return to Light review: Where music dances with light
It was in 2023 that sitar player Anoushka Shankar decided to capture the sublimity of the moments fleeting past her. She consciously decided to let go of 'the analysis of the moments from a future vantage point' and capture the here and now instead. The result has been three chapters of introspective music, all from different mindsets and geographies.
Across the trilogy, Anoushka has tried to craft a continual yet independent sonic narrative, charting an emotional journey through joy of simple moments, uncertainty and grief, and then awakening. While in Chapter 1: Forever, For Now (2023), the sparse pieces emerged from an afternoon with her children in the garden of her London home, Chapter 2: How Dark it is Before Dawn moved to the night and looked at its deeper textures as well as of the mind where the shadows of the past still lingered. Chapter 3: We Return to Light, conceptually, is a return to dawn as well as the basics. Three different producers, different geographies that are home in different ways and different ideas that are still woven into a thread.
A collaboration with Alam Khan, US-based son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the album is a reminder of their fathers: Pt Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akbar, whose duets have remained a stuff of lore. This, I feel, was going to be the tranquil release for her. While it does echo the bond, and the interplay of the sarod and sitar sounds elegant, some of it feels a little embryonic, like it needed more time. It drifts and you want to not go along sometimes.
But what's absolutely gorgeous is the title track, based on raag Maanj Khamaj, often played by their fathers. It shimmers like the dawn Anoushka seeks. Hiraeth (meaning deep longing in Welsh) is another piece that stays. In raag Palash Kaafi, composed by her father, it's perhaps Anoushka's expression of her yearning for him. Dancing on Scorched Earth is a meditative piece in the morning glory that is Ramkali. This is where Korwar sounds fabulous. The other pieces like We burn so brightly, Daybreak and Amrita, for me, fall in the ambient category. They all feel like safe play and one wishes it went beyond the sheltered and into the vulnerable that Anoushka does so well.
One is appreciative of how Anoushka has used her own life to represent Hindustani classical music, something that almost never happens in the relatively strict space. From the sadness of a painful past (her partner's infidelity, divorce, many surgeries, finally speaking about her childhood sexual abuse), which resulted in very poignant music, Anoushka is forging ahead. We will be waiting for the music that comes after this transformative journey.
Artistes: Anoushka Shankar, Alam Khan, Sarathy Korwar
Label: LEITER
Available on: Spotify
Rating: Three stars
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