Ranjha

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Ranjha is the second album from the collaborative ensemble of Israeli-American artist Shye Ben Tzur, Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood, and The Rajasthan Express, re leased on May 8, 2026 via World Circuit/BMG — arriving just over a decade after their celebrated debut Junun (2015). Where Junun was recorded at Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur and documented by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, Ranjha was produced by Sam Petts-Davies — the recording engineer on Junun who has since worked on albums by Radiohead, The Smile, and Frank Ocean — and recorded at Greenwood's own studio in Oxfordshire, marking a geographical shift while maintaining the same spirit of genuine cross-cultural collaboration. The eleven-track, 47-minute album brings together 21 musicians and continues the deep interweaving of qawwali devotional music, Rajasthani Manganiyar folk tradition, and Western compositional approaches that defined the first record, with the Rajasthan Express's six-piece brass section, nagara drums, sarangi, and harmonium all present alongside Greenwood's subtle orchestral and electronic contributions. Ben Tzur — who has lived in Ajmer, Rajasthan for many years — provides the spiritual and lyrical center, drawing on the Sufi poetry of Bulleh Shah and other devotional texts in a mix of Punjabi, Hindi, and Hebrew.The album's eleven tracks balance moments of exhilarating collective energy with passages of tender, hypnotic intimacy. The title track opens with a cascading horn figure that immediately establishes the record's festive momentum, while "Ishq-E-Majnun" — which draws on one of the most beloved narratives in Sufi love poetry, the story of Majnun's consuming passion for Layla — has emerged as a particular fan favorite for its combination of rhythmic propulsion and emotional depth. "Saqi" and "Sharminda" represent some of the album's most purely beautiful moments, the latter arriving near the close with a gentle, searching quality that makes for a moving final impression. Greenwood's contributions remain characteristically understated — adding orchestral texture, occasional guitar, and subtle electronic color rather than asserting a Western compositional framework over the material — in a way that honors the music's Rajasthani roots while giving the ensemble a distinctly layered, cinematic warmth. The album stands as a genuinely organic continuation of Junun, made by musicians who have grown in their understanding of one another over the decade between the two records. Show more