Jonny Greenwood's Junun record is due from Nonesuch on 13 November

Nonesuch will release Junun, the record Jonny Greenwood made earlier this year with the Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express, on 13 November, as a double LP and a CD.

Paul Thomas Anderson, whose last three films Greenwood scored, filmed the sessions. His film, also called Junun, had its premiere at the New York Film Festival last night, and today it went up on MUBI, which streams it exclusively for 30 days. The NME reports that the audience in New York went home with copies of the album, and that in the Q&A afterwards Anderson said the music will be played live by the same musicians in London and America, visas permitting.

Greenwood has played with Ben Tzur before, as a guest at Ben Tzur's concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London last year, and this summer, with the singers heard on the record, at the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival. Before that London night he said I'm always a little wary of rock bands half-heartedly dabbling in world music⁷.

Ben Tzur lives between India and Israel and writes qawwalis, the devotional songs of the Sufis, in Hebrew, Urdu and Hindi. On Junun qawwali singers sing his songs in Urdu and Hebrew, with the Rajasthan Express, a group of Indian musicians, around them. The record was made in a makeshift studio inside Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, where Greenwood gave an interview in February. Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's producer, recorded it. A clip from the film, which is also the video for “Roked”, follows one of the musicians into Jodhpur to have his instrument tuned.

Tracklist

Junun album trailer, October 2015· Nonesuch Recordswatch on youtube →