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| Picture: Yuval Hen / Deutsche Grammophon |
Her father taught her to play the sitar when she was seven years old. Now 32, Anoushka Shankar is ready to release Traces Of You (Universal Music), featuring three tracks with sister Norah Jones. She spoke to t2 from London.
Listening to the title track, it seems Traces Of You is a journey. Do you feel that the songs need to be heard as part of an album rather than individual tracks?
I do approach albums as a story, as a unified story. So there is very much a journey that courses through the album. People are free to listen to an album however they wish but as far as making it went, there was a definite story, an order that came into play while making the album.
And when and where did this journey begin?
It began sometime last summer at my house when Nitin (Sawhney) came around and I was wanting to start a new album and I talked to him very impulsively that he would produce the album. You know, normally he doesn’t produce other people’s work. Being very good friends, we started working together that summer. He is very good at having a flow and a concept as well. So he really helped to ground me into the fact that the music we were making together would be about the emotions, about stories…. So, even if there were going to be more technical pieces, they were not going to be there just for the sake of it. Emotion, first and foremost. So we really went on a rather intense journey together, writing music for about a year.
In what ways does the sitar become more than an instrument on the album, sort of a character?
It’s interesting.... I am an instrumentalist. So when I make music... not every time... but I think from an instrumental perspective. So, the instrument takes a central role and it can be open to interpretations in a more abstract way than when you have a singer who has lyrics. But it’s the sitar that’s leading listeners through the story; it’s the central character if you will.
What made you involve Norah on the album?
Well, I knew from the beginning when I was working on the idea of making this album. And, of course, the idea evolved over the course of its making… I didn’t want to have lots of different singers on the album because I have done that on the last few albums. And I wanted to create a unified journey on this album. So, I thought it would feel better to have just one voice that came back through the course of the songs and help tie up the things together. As soon as I realised that, she was obviously my first choice as an artiste and a sister. I opted for her very early on. I asked her and she said yes, communicating about the songs over the course of a few months before I finally went to New York to record with her in January.
The title of three songs from the album –– Traces Of You, Unsaid and The Sun Won’t Set –– seem to be about your father, Pandit Ravi Shankar?
It was all of it really. (Laughs) The Sun Won’t Set and Unsaid are particularly very direct about him. The Sun Won’t Set was written before he passed away and Unsaid was written after he passed away, though we recorded them together on the same weekend. Traces of You was actually a lot more abstract. I think there is a way with the lyrics that people now assume were about Bapi but it was actually very open-ended and could be about anybody or anything… the idea that we all indelibly influence each other when we interact. So whether you have a romantic relationship or a family relationship or a friendly relationship or even a hateful relationship, you do influence each other and we walk away from interactions carrying the influences of what we have been through. So, that’s what it was about more.
The video to the title track has been directed by your husband, director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement). How did he agree because you’ve never really worked together...
Well, obviously he is my husband! So, he has been a part of the listening process from the beginning. When I started talking about music again, he was naturally the person to turn to and you know we don’t work together… we support each other’s work but we don’t work together. So it was a nice idea to just collaborate a little bit and work on something together.
Since Joe hasn’t seen Calcutta, any plans of the two of you visiting the city?
I don’t know about Joe, but I would be coming. I am coming to India first in December to do a ‘Traces Of You’ tour with an amazing band of musicians from around the world, who represent the album beautifully. Then I come back in January to do a more classical tour. All the cities are being finalised but Calcutta is definitely my priority.
Is it just because of Pandit Ravi Shankar that you have a bond with Calcutta?
Obviously that’s the main thing. It’s a part of my heritage and my father always had such a deep connection that I grew up with and am aware of. As an artiste, I find Calcutta to be such an important and inspiring city. It is one of the cities — like a few other cities around the world — that deeply, impassionedly values arts and culture. I think that’s something increasingly important in our world.
How have you seen yourself evolve from your first album, Anoushka (1998), to Traces Of You?
(Long pause) Well, I think the more mature you get, the more one has to express with richer life experiences that come with the richer palette one gets to paint with, so to speak. When I look back at my first album, it’s very sweet but I think as an instrument player I have more depth today than I did then. Similarly, I would hope I have more depth in 10, 20 or 40 years than I do now. Hopefully that’s an ongoing process.
Finally, what are you reading and listening to?
I just finished Khaled Hosseini’s last book, And the Mountains Echoed. As far as music, I am discovering a lot of things. Bizarrely heard something of Kanye West that I really liked, which kind of shocked me because I am generally not a big fan of hip hop. Then there is this wonderful CD of mandolin by Avi Avital. It’s just beautiful compositions and beautiful playing.
Highlights of Traces Of You
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Unsaid: “Several weeks after our father’s passing, I flew to New York to record with Norah, and wrote these lyrics on the plane. She sat at the piano trying out a new melody, and as she sang, I realised she was singing phrases that were astonishingly close to the beloved musical theme our father wrote for Satyajit Ray’s film Pather Panchali decades ago. I asked her about it, and she told me she’d never heard that melody before. It is small, inexplicable moments like these that fill me with gratitude and awe.”
The Sun Won’t Set: “My father’s first name, Ravi, means ‘sun’ in Sanskrit. In the months before he passed away, this song was a way for me to express my unwillingness to let him go.”
Indian Summer: “When Nitin (Sawhney) and I wrote this piece together in the summer of 2009, I was just in the process of falling in love with my husband-to-be. I’d met Joe (Wright) whilst he was in New Delhi researching a film called ‘Indian Summer’. The film never happened, but we’d already met because of it, and didn’t mind.”
In Jyoti’s Name: “Sexual violence is something that has always left me deeply saddened and angry. I turned to this song as an expression of my sadness, anger and solidarity with people who have experienced violence and the trauma that accompanies it. The raga this is based on is the incredibly challenging, compelling and powerful Shree.”
Traces Of You: “People who have gone are still here in us. Places we came from are carried to the places we go. The creative spark that generated us all is alive in every birth, in every loving heart, and in every newly sung song.”
(Source: Universal Music)
