More than a decade after collaborating with Shye Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express on the album Junun and a Paul Thomas Anderson-directed documentary of the same name, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is returning to the project. The musicians’ second LP, Ranjha, will arrive May 8 from World Circuit/BMG. Its title track is out now in tandem with an Ian Patrick-directed video.
“It’s tempting to dismiss the presence of Radiohead’s erstwhile guitar wizard on Junun as a rock star slumming under the guise of post-production tweaker. Only it turns out Jonny Greenwood’s electric fuzz, supplementary rhythms and beloved vintage Ondes Martenot synthesizer add real bulk to this Middle East meets East plus West experiment in cultural diplomacy,” SPIN wrote in a contemporary review of Junun. “But certainly, Israeli singer/songwriter Shye Ben Tzur’s name belongs up top, swaggering his way through Hebrew, Hindi and Urdu verses while the Rajasthan Express brass band brings their 19-piece heft to a Bollywood/Sufi Islam collision course that makes room for drum machines, harmonium and three tubas.”
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This time around, the musicians gathered at Greenwood’s Oxfordshire, U.K., studio with producer Sam Petts-Davies and the Smile drummer Tom Skinner, after having recorded Junun in the 15th-century Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur. The plan was to make a follow-up, and when the artists opened for Radiohead in 2017-18, they already had new songs percolating, but momentum stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was a very different experience,” says Ben Tzur. “It was about getting a clearer sound in a more controlled environment, but using the features of the studio to be creative in a completely different way.” Adds Greenwood, “with Shye’s songs, you feel dangerously like you can ruin them quite easily by imposing western chords on them, like you’re forcing a square into a circle. But at the same time a lot of the songs just seem to come to life as soon as there was some of that. I’ve always wanted to turn this band into a funk group.”
“I can get awkward talking about this,” he continues, “because Shye is so sincere about it. I’m used to songs about alienation — songs which are about serious things, but not spiritual things. If an English band just sang religious or spiritually inspired songs and poetry, it would be very unusual.”
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