Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and The Rajasthan Express have shared Shemesh, the latest single from their forthcoming album Ranjha, out 8th May via World Circuit/BMG. The track arrives with a video directed by Ian Patrick.
Ranjha is the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Junun, the joyous cross-cultural collaboration that was accompanied by Paul Thomas Anderson’s documentary of the same name. That album saw the ensemble hole up inside Jodhpur’s 15th-century Mehrangarh fort with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich; for Ranjha, the 21-strong group reconvened in Greenwood’s Oxfordshire studio, with Sam Petts-Davies producing. The Smile’s Tom Skinner also plays on the album.
Ben Tzur — born in New York, raised in Israel, and a long-time resident of Rajasthan — has spent decades immersed in Sufi devotional music. “The first time I heard Indian music,” he says, “I didn’t speak Urdu at that point, so I couldn’t really understand the lyrics. But I felt it physically. It changed my life. It made me move to India and dedicate myself to it.” The Rajasthan Express, the ensemble he founded there, draws on Qawwali singing and Rajasthani folk traditions, augmented by a formidable brass section.
Though a sequel to Junun had been in the works since the Radiohead tour of 2017-18, writing sessions in Italy and the disruption of the pandemic delayed the project considerably. The shift to a controlled studio environment was a deliberate choice. “It was about getting a clearer sound in a more controlled environment, but using the features of the studio to be creative in a completely different way,” Ben Tzur explains. “So I think it sounds very different.”
Greenwood, whose recent collaborative work includes the album Jarak Qaribak with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, acknowledges the delicate balance involved: “With Shye’s songs, you feel dangerously like you can ruin them quite easily by imposing western chords on them, like you’re forcing a square into a circle. But at the same time, a lot of the songs just seem to come to life as soon as there was some of that.”
“You feel this music on your body,” says Ben Tzur. “Then it affects your emotional state when you hear the melodies. Then come the words and the lyrics. If people want to go deeper, they’ll find a rich world of music. And this album is maybe like a window into that phenomenal tradition.”
Ranjha is available on special Red & Coral Splatter vinyl, gatefold sleeve, CD, and download.
Pre-Order: https://worldcircuit.lnk.to/Ranjha
Music from their previous album, Junun, opens our Mixtape: Lost in Transmission, Episode 104.