Anoushka Shankar, the acclaimed sitar player, producer and composer, shares the second instalment of the trilogy of mini-albums she began with ‘Chapter I: Forever, For Now’ in October 2023. ‘Chapter II: How Dark it Is Before Dawn’ is out on limited edition vinyl and via all digital platforms via LEITER. The series follows her live album ‘Between Us…’, a collaboration with Jules Buckley and the Metropole Orkest nominated for 2023’s Best Global Music Album Grammy.

‘Chapter II: How Dark it Is Before Dawn’ was recorded during sessions with British producer and composer Peter Raeburn in his two Soundtree Studios, first in May, 2023 in LA, where Shankar had just performed her father Ravi’s Sitar Concerto No. 3 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, then in London in September, 2023 before she set out on her North American tour. It finds Shankar expanding her horizons, both artistically and sonically, exploring a mesmeric, at times almost ambient soundscape that nonetheless picks up where Chapter I’s final track, the fluid ‘Sleeping Flowers (Awaken Every Spring)’, left off. That collection captured the feeling of a drowsy summer afternoon in Shankar’s London garden, while Chapter II’s opening track, the dreamy ‘Pacifica’, begins a journey into night, continuing through four more exquisite, expansive pieces until first light, when the shackles of slumber are slowly shaken off with the rousing ‘New Dawn’, its hypnotic character inspired by Phillip Glass.

In between, the diaphanous ‘Offering’, with its long, lingering notes, and the gently stirring ‘Below The Surface’, whose tension, like the mini-album’s title, hints at nocturnal anxieties, emerged from single takes, while ‘What Dreams Are Made Of’’s field recordings lends it a chimeric quality, suggesting an overdue, Eastern take on contemporary ambient Americana. Moreover, ‘In The End’’s piano, courtesy of Danny Keane – with whom she first worked while touring Traces Of You a decade ago, and who originally helped compose the piece for Shankar’s 2017 score to the rare 1928 silent film, ‘Shiraz: A Romance of India’ – helps make it one of the most unapologetically moving pieces she’s ever recorded. “I just wanted to make the kind of music I crave,” Shankar summarises of the mini-album, “a deepening of what Chapter I touched upon, the need for peaceful, healing music.”

Chapter II picks up on other themes from its predecessor, not least that Shankar again chose to begin recording with a blank slate “and trust that something’s going to happen”. She also continues to acknowledge her geographic roots, one by one, across all three releases. Born in London, where she now lives, she recorded Chapter I in Berlin as a nod to her European heritage, while most of this second collection was captured in California, where she moved aged 11 and lived for over 15 years. Not that the latter decision was contrived. “Pete and I met before the pandemic,” she explains, “when he was saying he’d love to play with that sound world, a sonically immersive space that can invite a listener in more. He wanted to give me the opportunity to be able to play whilst hearing what my instrument can do, using manipulation, reverbs and effects, but for me to be able to actually write to that. It’s like playing a new instrument.”

Chapter II: How Dark it Is Before Dawn opens up whole new musical realms for Shankar. In fact, she confesses she had a further, albeit subconscious ambition for these recordings: to overcome the spiritual clichés sometimes associated with instrumental sitar music. “I’ve been wanting to make slow, peaceful music like this for a while,” she explains, “but I have no desire to create an album that makes people flashback to the 1960’s. It’s about looking forward. The explosion of fresh, neoclassical piano music has been inspiring, and it’s about time the sitar was discussed in the same way.”

Shankar first became close friends with Raeburn and his partner Megan Wyler a decade ago while their kids, who were attending the same school, shared playdates. They took advantage of their comfortable familiarity during four days of informal recording, with Shankar staying at their home, where Raeburn’s intimate studio was then set up. “It was very simple, sweet and nurturing,” she says, fondly recalling sessions spent in slipper socks with the family dog resting its head on her knee. Indeed, Wyler – to whose recordings Shankar has previously contributed – added vocals to ‘Pacifica’ and ‘New Dawn’. “She has an incredible skill at layering harmonies,” Shankar says. “You don’t even necessarily know it’s a voice. She adds a warm, human texture in a way that a synth maybe wouldn’t.”

Given her busy schedule, it’s not surprising Shankar finds herself seeking refuge in her work. She continues sporadically to perform her father’s music, and also recently appeared on her half-sister Norah Jones’ podcast performing ‘Traces Of You’, she brought her quintet on tour in Australia and India earlier this year, including a show at the Mumbai leg of Lollapalooza, before beginning a European tour in April. Consequently, ‘Chapter II: How Dark it Is Before Dawn’ offers a refreshingly innovative, profoundly beautiful and emotionally eloquent sanctuary from a world that increasingly demands it.

“This was always going to be about the idea,” Shankar concludes, “that I might need to take myself away to heal for a night before facing a new day, that all of us are carrying too much and need to be able to stop and heal, and that the world itself needs to take a pause, reset and go in a new direction. This music is for whatever part of us needs to hold on through the dark in trust that there is a dawn.”