Few artists rethink the instrument itself; Anupam Shobhakar does it with style. Liquid Reality is his most confident leap yet, the work of a guitarist, composer, and sarodist who converts tradition into forward motion. Fresh off 2023’s Raga Jhinjhoti on Fretless Guitar—the first-ever Indian classical recording on fretless guitar—he turns mastery into momentum.
Rooted in the Senia Maihar Gharana and guided by Aashish Khan, Shobhakar has engineered his own language with a custom double‑neck guitar, letting fretted harmony and fretless raga nuance converse in real time. The album moves with effortless precision from Sufi inflection to progressive jazz‑rock, buoyed by a cosmopolitan cast: pianists Utsav Lal and Santiago Liebson, kanjeera legend Swami Selva Ganesh, vocalists Ona Kirei and Ben Parag, and percussionists Satoshi Takeishi, Chris Savarino, and Gumbi Ortiz. La Danse de Bonheur nods to Shakti while sounding unmistakably new, Anjaneya surges with Hanuman’s fearless spirit, and Formless distills everything to guitar and kanjeera, where breath becomes rhythm.
Shobhakar doesn’t just expand the electric guitar’s vocabulary—he speaks it fluently, gracefully, and with generosity. For listeners who admire the adventurous clarity of Kurt Rosenwinkel, the coloristic daring of Nels Cline, and the radiant fire of John McLaughlin/Shakti, Liquid Reality is a gift from an artist at the height of his imagination.
Liquid Reality: Anupam Shobhakar’s Double‑Neck Odyssey of Raga and Jazz East Meets Electric: Inside Anupam Shobhakar’s Liquid Reality From Raga to Rock: Anupam Shobhakar Redefines Fusion on Liquid Reality Beyond Borders, Beyond Frets: The Guitar’s Next Chapter with Liquid Reality La Danse, Anjaneya, Formless: Anupam Shobhakar’s Blueprint for Modern Global Fusion