Rafiq Bhatia Creates Vast Sonic Ecosystems With New Album ‘Environments’ Out September 12
Academy Award-nominated composer and guitarist Rafiq Bhatia announces ’Environments’ today, his first full-length solo album since 2018’s ’Breaking English’. Coming out September 12, ’Environments’ celebrates Bhatia’s full-circle return to improvised music after a decade-long foray into meticulous studio-based constructions. In fact, the opening track “Aviary I | Sunrise” was recorded in one take. Listen to the album version and watch a live in-studio version of the track below:
Listen to “Aviary I | Sunrise” (album version):
https://rafiqbhatia.ffm.to/environments
Watch the “Aviary I | Sunrise” live session:
https://youtu.be/IoTcAM_ntoU?si=4LUAPoIGBr8e7bUc
A collaboration with trumpeter Riley Mulherkar and Bhatia’s Son Lux-bandmate, drummer Ian Chang, this first dispatch feels like a microcosm of the full album, in which the trio improvises to conjure worlds of sound that bloom, melt, crackle and combust. Using their instruments to evoke a forest floor awakening, the trio’s accumulating chorus of intimate actions creates an ecosystem, enveloping Bhatia’s melodic gestures in birdsong. Dimming to a pre-dawn glow, the second half of the piece builds patiently but undeniably, as waves of fraying guitar, waterfalls of trumpet, and avalanches of drums are sublimated into a single sound that heralds the rising sun. It’s an otherworldly portrait of the world around us.
Using sound to evoke a sense of place feels like a natural outgrowth for Bhatia given his recent forays into film scoring—as a member of the band Son Lux, he earned Oscar and BAFTA nominations for the band's score for 2023’s Best Picture-winning film ’Everything Everywhere All At Once‘, for which they collaborated with David Byrne, André Benjamin, Mitski, and Randy Newman. The trio also scored this season's critically acclaimed and surprising Marvel blockbuster ’Thunderbolts*’ and recently announced their involvement in the new Mahershala Ali-starring ‘Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother’.
But it was ‘On Blue’, a collaboration with the Thai auteur and Cannes Palm d'Or winning filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, that most clearly inspired Bhatia's evolution on ‘Environments’, with Weerasethakul's dreamlike elongation of time and use of natural sound leaving an indelible mark on the album. A live performance of ‘On Blue’ will be featured at the inaugural AIR Festival in Aspen, CO this July alongside works by Matthew Barney, André 3000, Glenn Ligon and others.
Drawing on his jazz background that has previously included collaborations with Arooj Aftab, Ambrose Akinmusire, Dave Douglas, Marcus Gilmore, Mary Halvorson, Billy Hart, Kassa Overall, Cécile McLorin Salvant and more, Bhatia marks his return to improvised music with a trio of trusted friends and collaborators on ‘Environments’. Chang, contributor of acoustic and electronic percussion, was an obvious choice – over a decade, the friends have explored defying the expectations of their instruments together, and his signature off-kilter swagger of drumming is as comfortable in producing hush or roar. Trumpeter Mulherkar, whose acclaimed debut album Bhatia co-produced, brings a breath-driven approach to slowly developing sounds and avian flourishes that are naturally at home on this uncharted voyage.
“I think we’re all looking for expressive gestures on our instruments that evoke these things heard in more studio-type constructions,” Bhatia says. “I’ve been after this sort of world-building with sound but being able to control and shape it very intentionally and with great care.”
After the release of ‘Environments’, Bhatia and his bandmates will embark on a select run of Midwest and East coast tour dates including shows in Chicago, Philadelphia and Brooklyn. All upcoming shows are listed below.
TOUR DATES
Sept. 13 - Chicago, IL - Sound & Gravity Festival
Sept. 14 - Milwaukee, WI - Vivarium
Sept. 15 - Minneapolis, MN - Berlin
Oct. 7 - Pittsburgh, PA - The Andy Warhol Museum
Oct. 8 - Philadelphia, PA - Solar Myth
Oct. 10 - Springfield, MA - HOPE Center for the Arts
Oct. 11 - Brooklyn, NY - Public Records
Oct. 12 - Baltimore, MD - Creative Alliance