Music transcends barriers, connecting people across the globe through a universal language. Anupam Shobhakar, an Indian-American musician based in New York, embodies this philosophy by seamlessly blending Indian classical music with Western sounds. With his inventive double-neck instrument and expertise as a sarod player, he has made the world sit up and listen.
—V Nichita, Times of India
Liquid Reality Out March 14, Coinciding with Hindu Celebration of Holi, the Festival of Colors;
Featuring Swaminathan Selvaganesh, Satoshi Takeishi, Gumbi Ortiz, Santiago Leibson, and more;
Highlights Include “Ladders to the Sky” and an Innovative New Take on Shakti’s “La Danse du Bonheur”
NYC Album Release Concert on April 10 at Joe’s Pub | Tickets
Growing up in Bombay, India, Anupam Shobhakar scrutinized the fretboard sorcery of Western shred guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Allan Holdsworth. After witnessing a life-changing performance by the great sarod master Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the aspiring teen took up the North Indian instrument and eventually established a flourishing career as a sarod player that took him around the globe. But much like John McLaughlin and Ustad Zakir Hussain’s groundbreaking Shakti ensemble found a common language between Indian classical music and Western jazz and guitar traditions in the 1970s, Shobhakar always dreamed of bringing together the two distinct sounds that so deeply inspired him. On Liquid Reality—releasing March 14, 2025, on the Hindu festival of Holi—he does just that, crossing firmly placed boundaries of musical vocabulary and aesthetic to create a thrilling new sonic vision for the 21st century. And it took the discovery of a literal dream instrument to bring everything together.
With guitar virtuosos on his headphones, it was Shakti who first gave the teenaged Shobhakar the idea he could combine styles. “Listening to the first Shakti record,” he remembers, “I heard John McLaughlin play all of this Indian music on the guitar, and that just blew my mind. I was like, ‘Wow, the guitar can do this!? It can play Indian music?’” As McLaughlin turned to his studies on the veena, a fretted string instrument, to immerse himself in the vocabulary of Indian classical music, Shobhakar took to the sarod, a fretless 25-string instrument that looks guitar-like but has its own unique technical demands.
While he stuck with the instrument and built his musical career around it, Shobhakar’s idea to fuse styles lingered in the background. “My music was never just about being a classical sarod player,” he recalls. “There was always a writing bug. I wanted to collaborate with Western classical artists, rock musicians, and jazz artists.” That pursuit eventually landed Shobhakar in New York, where he found those types of collaborative relationships. Soon, he says, “When I was picking up the sarod, I was missing the guitar,” he recalls, “and when I was playing the guitar, I was missing the sarod.”
The solution required a breakthrough, though. “It was brewing in my subconscious,” he recalls, “and it came to me in a dream.” Shobhakar envisioned a double-neck electric guitar with both fretted and fretless necks, providing access to both traditional electric guitar techniques as well as a way to translate the vocabulary of the sarod to guitar. While this is a rare but not completely unheard-of combination of instruments, as a left-handed player, the ideal instrument simply didn’t exist. He commissioned a custom guitar and immediately unlocked his sound.
Liquid Reality presents the debut of Shobhakar’s radical new approach. The opening “Anjaneya” is a winding course through fretted and fretless wizardry propelled by the powerful combination of South Indian rhythms played by celebrated percussionist and composer Swaminathan Selvaganesh and drum kit played by Satoshi Takeishi, the versatile, in-demand New York jazz percussionist. It’s immediately evident that Shobhakar is forging a brave new sonic future—and one that is wholly his own.
Beyond Shobhakar’s obvious instrumental virtuosity, his compositions, written with his individual collaborators in mind, make Liquid Reality one of a kind. “Ladders to the Sky” is an epic journey with a Brazilian tinge that was composed in part as an homage to the Pat Metheny Group’s 1984 record, First Circle. This track was created to work with Barcelona-born vocalist Ona K (Ona Kirei), who “sings like an angel,” and percussionist Gumbi Ortiz, best known for his work with guitarist John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, Paco DeLucia.
“Formless” was conceived as a duo with Swaminathan Selvaganesh on kanjeera. Its expertly executed serpentine form— “a weird mix of ideas between West and East with a lot of mathematical juggling going on”— offers a joyous, energetic, and personal musical conversation between the two artists.
Shobhakar decided to tackle Shakti’s looming influence head-on with “La Danse Du Bonheur,” composed by McLaughlin and violinist L. Shankar for the group’s 1976 Handful of Beauty. More than simple cover, though, the version on Liquid Reality provides a link between the original masters of the form and the new generation.
“Swami and I are very good friends, and we would always nerd out to Shakti,” the guitarist says, and quickly points out that Swaminathan Selvaganesh is the third generation of his family to play this music: his father, percussionist and vocalist V. Selvaganesh, has been performing with Shakti since the ensemble reformed in the late ’90s as Remember Shakti, taking on the role played by his father, percussionist Vikku Vinayakram, in the original ensemble. “He was literally born to play this music,” says Shobhakar.
Rather than re-hash what has already been done, Shobhakar explains, “I didn’t just want to do a carbon copy.” Joined by Brooklyn-based Indian pianist Utsav Lal, who the guitarist points out is also adept at straddling musical worlds, Shobhakar was able to add chords to the original, borrowing outside harmony to help make it his own arrangement. As a final touch, he added his own original composition in the middle of the track, delivering new twists and turns to the notably athletic tune. In this blazing take on his most formative influence, Shobhakar makes the Shakti classic his own and pushes it to even more extreme heights.
It’s a tribute to Shakti but, even more, it’s a poetic way to celebrate the artistic achievement we hear throughout Liquid Reality. After decades spent dreaming of a way to cross Western electric guitar styles with Indian classical music, Shobhakar, with his new bespoke instrument in hand, has connected the traditions and broken through to a new world of sound.
Featuring Swaminathan Selvaganesh, Satoshi Takeishi, Gumbi Ortiz, Santiago Leibson, and more;
Highlights Include “Ladders to the Sky” and an Innovative New Take on Shakti’s “La Danse du Bonheur”
NYC Album Release Concert on April 10 at Joe’s Pub | Tickets
Growing up in Bombay, India, Anupam Shobhakar scrutinized the fretboard sorcery of Western shred guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Allan Holdsworth. After witnessing a life-changing performance by the great sarod master Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the aspiring teen took up the North Indian instrument and eventually established a flourishing career as a sarod player that took him around the globe. But much like John McLaughlin and Ustad Zakir Hussain’s groundbreaking Shakti ensemble found a common language between Indian classical music and Western jazz and guitar traditions in the 1970s, Shobhakar always dreamed of bringing together the two distinct sounds that so deeply inspired him. On Liquid Reality—releasing March 14, 2025, on the Hindu festival of Holi—he does just that, crossing firmly placed boundaries of musical vocabulary and aesthetic to create a thrilling new sonic vision for the 21st century. And it took the discovery of a literal dream instrument to bring everything together.
With guitar virtuosos on his headphones, it was Shakti who first gave the teenaged Shobhakar the idea he could combine styles. “Listening to the first Shakti record,” he remembers, “I heard John McLaughlin play all of this Indian music on the guitar, and that just blew my mind. I was like, ‘Wow, the guitar can do this!? It can play Indian music?’” As McLaughlin turned to his studies on the veena, a fretted string instrument, to immerse himself in the vocabulary of Indian classical music, Shobhakar took to the sarod, a fretless 25-string instrument that looks guitar-like but has its own unique technical demands.
While he stuck with the instrument and built his musical career around it, Shobhakar’s idea to fuse styles lingered in the background. “My music was never just about being a classical sarod player,” he recalls. “There was always a writing bug. I wanted to collaborate with Western classical artists, rock musicians, and jazz artists.” That pursuit eventually landed Shobhakar in New York, where he found those types of collaborative relationships. Soon, he says, “When I was picking up the sarod, I was missing the guitar,” he recalls, “and when I was playing the guitar, I was missing the sarod.”
The solution required a breakthrough, though. “It was brewing in my subconscious,” he recalls, “and it came to me in a dream.” Shobhakar envisioned a double-neck electric guitar with both fretted and fretless necks, providing access to both traditional electric guitar techniques as well as a way to translate the vocabulary of the sarod to guitar. While this is a rare but not completely unheard-of combination of instruments, as a left-handed player, the ideal instrument simply didn’t exist. He commissioned a custom guitar and immediately unlocked his sound.
Liquid Reality presents the debut of Shobhakar’s radical new approach. The opening “Anjaneya” is a winding course through fretted and fretless wizardry propelled by the powerful combination of South Indian rhythms played by celebrated percussionist and composer Swaminathan Selvaganesh and drum kit played by Satoshi Takeishi, the versatile, in-demand New York jazz percussionist. It’s immediately evident that Shobhakar is forging a brave new sonic future—and one that is wholly his own.
Beyond Shobhakar’s obvious instrumental virtuosity, his compositions, written with his individual collaborators in mind, make Liquid Reality one of a kind. “Ladders to the Sky” is an epic journey with a Brazilian tinge that was composed in part as an homage to the Pat Metheny Group’s 1984 record, First Circle. This track was created to work with Barcelona-born vocalist Ona K (Ona Kirei), who “sings like an angel,” and percussionist Gumbi Ortiz, best known for his work with guitarist John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, Paco DeLucia.
“Formless” was conceived as a duo with Swaminathan Selvaganesh on kanjeera. Its expertly executed serpentine form— “a weird mix of ideas between West and East with a lot of mathematical juggling going on”— offers a joyous, energetic, and personal musical conversation between the two artists.
Shobhakar decided to tackle Shakti’s looming influence head-on with “La Danse Du Bonheur,” composed by McLaughlin and violinist L. Shankar for the group’s 1976 Handful of Beauty. More than simple cover, though, the version on Liquid Reality provides a link between the original masters of the form and the new generation.
“Swami and I are very good friends, and we would always nerd out to Shakti,” the guitarist says, and quickly points out that Swaminathan Selvaganesh is the third generation of his family to play this music: his father, percussionist and vocalist V. Selvaganesh, has been performing with Shakti since the ensemble reformed in the late ’90s as Remember Shakti, taking on the role played by his father, percussionist Vikku Vinayakram, in the original ensemble. “He was literally born to play this music,” says Shobhakar.
Rather than re-hash what has already been done, Shobhakar explains, “I didn’t just want to do a carbon copy.” Joined by Brooklyn-based Indian pianist Utsav Lal, who the guitarist points out is also adept at straddling musical worlds, Shobhakar was able to add chords to the original, borrowing outside harmony to help make it his own arrangement. As a final touch, he added his own original composition in the middle of the track, delivering new twists and turns to the notably athletic tune. In this blazing take on his most formative influence, Shobhakar makes the Shakti classic his own and pushes it to even more extreme heights.
It’s a tribute to Shakti but, even more, it’s a poetic way to celebrate the artistic achievement we hear throughout Liquid Reality. After decades spent dreaming of a way to cross Western electric guitar styles with Indian classical music, Shobhakar, with his new bespoke instrument in hand, has connected the traditions and broken through to a new world of sound.
For more information contact Cindy Byram PR.
