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Desi guitarist blends Indian classical and Jazz in new song
He uses custom-built double-neck electric guitar designed to merge the expressive vocabulary of both the sarod and the electric guitar.
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Staff Reporter
- Fri, 06, Jun 2025
- 16:22 EDT
- 17
Anupam Shobhakar / Image Courtesy; Cindy Byram
Anupam Shobhakar, an Indian American guitarist, has recently released a new music video that blends Indian classical music with jazz and rock elements.
The track, titled La Danse du Bonheur, is a reimagining of a 1970s Indo-Western composition and features on Shobhakar’s latest album Liquid Reality.The video highlights Shobhakar’s hybrid sound—shaped by his training in Hindustani classical sarod and his long-standing interest in Western guitar. Shobhakar’s rendition introduces new harmonic elements and an original section, diverging from the original while preserving its core rhythmic and melodic structure. “I didn’t just want to do a carbon copy,” he said. “I wanted to reimagine the track with my own voice.”
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Raised in Mumbai, Shobhakar began training on the sarod after hearing a live performance by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. While rooted in Hindustani classical music, he was also drawn to Western guitarists like Eddie Van Halen and Allan Holdsworth. This cross-cultural influence shaped Liquid Reality, released earlier this year.
A central feature of the album is the double-neck guitar—one fretted, one fretless—commissioned to combine the phrasing of the sarod with conventional guitar techniques. “When I was picking up the sarod, I was missing the guitar,” Shobhakar said. “And when I was playing the guitar, I was missing the sarod.”
The new version of La Danse du Bonheur includes contributions from percussionist Swaminathan Selvaganesh, pianist Utsav Lal, and vocalist Ben Parag. Selvaganesh’s role carries generational weight: his father, V. Selvaganesh, and grandfather, Vikku Vinayakram, were both members of earlier Indo-fusion ensembles. “He was literally born to play this music,” Shobhakar said.
Other tracks on the album include “Anjaneya,” which features interplay between fretless guitar and South Indian rhythms with drummer Satoshi Takeishi; “Ladders to the Sky,” influenced by Brazilian music and composed for vocalist Ona Kirei; and “Formless,” a rhythmic duet between Shobhakar and Selvaganesh on the kanjeera.
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