Anoushka Shankar

Reflections is a personal retrospective of Grammy-nominated artist Anoushka Shankar’s favorite tracks, with hits from previous albums such as Land of Gold, Traces of You, and Rise, presented in a new selection curated by Shankar herself. Featuring important collaborators in her career such as her father, Ravi Shankar, and her sister, Norah Jones, Reflections provides personal statements and the artist’s insights into each beloved track.

After the great success of her DG debut Traveller which spent 6 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboards World Music chart and received a Grammy nomination, Anoushka Shankar returns with another outstanding recording: Traces of You, featuring three new songs with her half-sister, Norah Jones. Produced by British composer and multi-instrumentalist Nitin Sawhney, Traces of You features contributions by Anoushkas longtime associates: tabla genius Tanmoy Bose, flutist Ravichandra Kulur, and percussion wizard Pirashanna Thevarajah. Other highlights are a musical exploration of the unique sound of the Hang drum, played by its foremost exponent, Manu Delago.

It goes without saying that Anoushka Shankar is a virtuoso sitar player, but one can never be sure how she will use her skills. She has given some memorable performances in the past, playing ragas alongside her legendary father and teacher Ravi, but her solo work has edged towards the experimental and pop mainstream. Her Breathing Under Water album, recorded with electronica exponent Karsh Kale, included a ballad from Sting. Now comes a very different project, in which she explores the links between Indian music and Spanish flamenco, the result of ancient Gypsy migration. It's an area that has fascinated Nitin Sawhney – who provides the sleeve notes – and allows her to demonstrate her inspired instrumental work in the company of Indian musicians and the flamenco elite, including the producer and guitarist Javier Limón.

The sounds of bird song, singing bowls and water rippling invite us to Peradam, which takes as its entry point René Daumal’s early 1930s novel Mount Analogue: a Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, in which the French writer, critic and poet mapped a metaphysical journey to “the ultimate symbolic mountain” in search of meaning. In it, Daumal introduced the idea of the “peradam”, a rare, crystalline stone – harbouring profound truths – that is only visible to seekers on a true spiritual path.