About

“Since her father’s death in late 2012, eyes and ears have focused more heavily on Shankar than ever, as the presumed heir apparent. After a decade of dabbling with electronica, flamenco and pop, last year’s Home marked a return to the 35-year-old virtuoso’s classical roots. It was an emotional, inward-looking “offering” to her late father, which only lengthened the shadow he casts over her career.

With Land of Gold, in contrast, Shankar looks out at the world with a musical “cry against injustice” inspired by the refugee ­crisis. This album, her eighth studio release, also finds Shankar re-embracing electronics and cross-genre collaborations. The largely instrumental album frames Shankar’s sitar in a rich, sympathetic soundscape. Key textures are provided by celebrated hang player and co-writer Manu Delago. A second, improvisational voice is found in Sanjeev Shankar, a student of her father’s who plays the shehnai, an Indian woodwind instrument. Along with Shankar’s sitar, this core acoustic trio provide an organic, human counterpoint to pop producer Matt Robertson’s at-times ­overpowering electronics.” – The National

“The process of recording this album was integral to creating a fluid, cohesive sound. The initial recordings, which went on to define the sound of the album, took place outside of a sanitized studio environment, in a remote rural setting in Tuscany. In these early stages, I had the privilege of working with a core team of gifted musicians. Manu Delago, the world’s foremost Hang player, was in many ways my main partner in making Land of Gold, co-writing nearly all the pieces and also playing across the album on Hang and multiple percussion instruments. Sanjeev Shankar, a student of my father, plays a searingly emotional instrument called the shehnai, a reed instrument from India. The three of us, my husband Joe Wright – whose film-making sensibilities helped to shape and add depth to the mood and energy of the album – and my longtime engineer Julian Hepple stayed on a farm together and worked from the ground up, shaping a core sound and mood that would define the album as a whole. In this way, we were able to integrate the ambience of nature and life that surrounded us. The remote setting also gave us the space to experiment with and blend our styles, responding to each other while playing, and so producing layering and depth.” – Anoushka Shankar

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