Jonny Greenwood, Shye Ben Tzur 和 The Rajasthan Express 分享新歌 "Shemesh"

在他们的第二张合作专辑 "Ranjha" 将于5月8日通过 World Circuit/BMG 发行之前, Radiohead 吉他手 Jonny Greenwood, 以色列音乐人 Shye Ben Tzur 和印度音乐团体 The Rajasthan Express 分享了继标题曲 "Ranjha" 之后的第二支单曲 "Shemesh." 新闻稿摘录如下:

(April 8, 2026) - Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, and The Rajasthan Express, have unveiled their new single "Shemesh" ahead of their new album Ranjha out on May 8th via World Circuit/BMG. Following the release last month of the album's title track, "Shemesh" is accompanied by a video directed by Ian Patrick. Produced by Sam Petts-Davies and recorded at Greenwood's Oxfordshire studio, Ranjha is the follow-up to 2015's widely acclaimed album Junun. Presented on special Red & Coral Splatter vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, CD, and as a download, Ranjha is available for pre-order.

Watch "Shemesh" music video here: http://t.cn/AXJRtwg2
Pre-order Ranjha here: http://t.cn/AXVOHTLu

In 2015, Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and their Indian collaborators The Rajasthan Express released Junun, accompanied by Paul Thomas Anderson’s documentary of the same name. Junun was widely acclaimed both for what it was – a joyous synthesis of the sensibilities of several wildly divergent musical backgrounds – and for what it wasn’t. All concerned were determined that Junun would be neither solemn experimental exercise nor polite cultural exchange. The musicians, along with longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, ensconced themselves in the 15th-century Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur and created something real.

A decade or so later, they’ve done it again. The team behind Ranjha is (mostly) the same, the location (Oxford) is different and the ambition consistent: to conjure and communicate something of the transformative feeling that Shye recalls gripping him on his initial exposure to the sound in which he has since immersed himself. “The first time I heard Indian music,” he says, “I didn’t speak Urdu at that point, so I couldn’t really understand the lyrics. But I felt it physically. It changed my life. It made me move to India and dedicate myself to it.”

Shye Ben Tzur was born in New York City and raised in Israel. He was 19 when he saw the Indian flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and tabla player Zakir Hussain in concert in Jerusalem, and felt that his destiny had been decided. He relocated to Ajmer, in Rajasthan, married into an Indian family, learned the languages, and founded The Rajasthan Express, a supergroup of musicians adept in the Sufi devotional singing known as Qawwali, the folk music of Rajasthan, and, when necessary, furnished a thumping brass section.

Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with Radiohead, has been on various other musical journeys of his own. He has composed film scores for – among others – Paul Thomas Anderson, Jane Campion, and Tran Anh Hung, arranged strings for The Pretenders and Frank Ocean, and was commissioned by BBC Proms for his piece ‘Horror vacui’, for which he won the ‘Large Orchestral Award’ at the Ivors. In 2023, Greenwood collaborated with the Israeli rock musician Dudu Tassa on 'Jarak Qaribak', an album of well-known Middle Eastern love songs, all adored across the region, on which the guest vocalists were asked to step across geographic borders – an Egyptian singer did the Algerian song, a Palestinian picked up the Lebanese selection, an Israeli performed the Moroccan one, an Emirati the Israeli.

The sequel to Junun was not supposed to be this long in coming. “No,” says Shye. “Even when we were on the Radiohead tour (2017 and 2018), we were already working on new songs”. Jonny recalls further writing sessions in Italy at around that time, before the work, like everything else, was postponed by the Covid-19 pandemic. One decision had been made, however, which is that they would not return to the fort, but instead record their second album in a more orthodox studio – the same Oxford studio in which Jonny has recently been recording as The Smile with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and jazz drummer Tom Skinner (Skinner would also eventually be enlisted to play on “Ranjha”). Assembling everyone in the same place was a considerable logistical undertaking: 21 musicians and/or singers are credited on the album, most of them from a long way away.

“It was a very different experience,” agrees Shye. “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. So I think it sounds very different.” What Ranjha does share with Junun is the willingness of all concerned to go with what happened when everyone’s ideas were brought to bear upon the song-sketches Shye brought with him. “With Shye’s songs,” says Jonny, “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.”

For all involved, Ranjha has been, as Junun was, a cascade of pleasant surprises. For the listener, it’s a testament to the power of allowing unselfconscious curiosity to get the better of you. “I can get awkward talking about this,” says Jonny, “because Shye is so sincere about it. I’m used to songs about alienation, songs that 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.”

None of which strikes Shye as necessarily any obstacle to enjoying Ranjha – and perhaps even to allowing this music to beguile newcomers to it as it once entranced him. “You feel this music on your body,” he says. “Then it affects your emotional state when you hear the melodies. Then come the words and the lyrics. If people want to go deeper, they’ll find a rich world of music. And this album is maybe like a window into that phenomenal tradition.” http://t.cn/AXJRtTN2