Meteorologists will tell you that the atmosphere never repeats itself exactly. Which means every sunrise, every sunset, and every storm is unique.
Guitarist and composer Rafiq Bhatia is channeling that same idea through his music.
Listening to his latest project, Environments, feels a little like moving through a landscape — sounds appearing, shifting, dissolving.
Bhatia is one of the more unusual figures on today’s musical map. A guitarist, producer, and composer, he’s collaborated with artists ranging from Cécile McLorin Salvant to the Kronos Quartet. He’s also a member of the experimental trio Son Lux — the group behind the Oscar-nominated score to the film Everything Everywhere All at Once.
For years, Bhatia had been making highly detailed music in the studio — sculpting sound layer by layer with digital tools.
Eventually he realized something about that process was missing.
“I was getting at a sound and a textural world that felt like what’s in here,” he told me. “But it was happening in such slow motion that I was losing the immediacy of how it feels when you just extemporize and say something in the moment.”
So he began experimenting with a different approach: running his guitar through a computer and treating the technology as part of the instrument itself. And though the tools are digital` the results sound natural and organic.
“I would hammer the strings in a certain way to evoke bird song,” he said. “Accumulate layers so it started to feel like birds singing from different parts of a forest.”
The music opens a kind of sanctuary — somewhere listeners can slow down and recalibrate their relationship with the world around them. Those environments are brought to life through a trio with drummer Ian Chang and trumpeter Riley Mulherkar.
Bhatia describes the group as three musicians shaping a shared sonic space. And what happens on stage isn’t meant to reproduce the record exactly.
When asked whether the trio would perform Environments live note-for-note, Bhatia reached for a metaphor. “We’ve all experienced many thunderstorms,” he said. “They’re totally different each time… but you know when you’re in one.”
Think of the album as one storm. A concert will be another.
Rafiq Bhatia performs music from Environments with Ian Chang and Riley Mulherkar at the 92nd Street Y on March 27. And like a sunrise or a thunderstorm, the atmosphere of that night will never repeat itself exactly.
More info on the show here.
