Sitar Virtuoso Purbayan Chatterjee and 5-Time Grammy Winner Mark Lettieri Release Collaborative Album Feathered Creatures

In a groundbreaking global collaboration, Indian sitar virtuoso and composer Purbayan Chatterjee has joined forces with five-time Grammy Award-winning guitarist Mark Lettieri (Snarky Puppy, The Fearless Flyers) to release their highly anticipated collaborative album titled ‘Feathered Creatures’, out today via GroundUP Records.

The 9-track album represents a bold artistic evolution, effortlessly dissolving the boundaries between Indian classical music, jazz, rock, and contemporary electronica. Produced and arranged by Chatterjee’s longtime collaborator Nakul Chugh, the album infuses traditional instrumentation with a cutting-edge sound design palette.

The project was sparked by Snarky Puppy founder Michael League, who recognized a rare creative chemistry between the two virtuosos and introduced them during Chatterjee’s international tour as a guest with the band. What began as a recording experiment quickly transformed into a full, co-authored artistic partnership defined by shared authorship and mutual respect.

Purbayan Chatterjee states, “This album stems from a deep-seated need to soar beyond our foundational disciplines. We aren't casting tradition aside; rather, we are elevating it so that ancient heritage can fully awaken within a modern landscape."

Mark Lettieri states, “I’m incredibly excited for this new project with Purbayan. It’s a new sound and creative direction for both of us, that perfectly blends our diverse set of influences and styles.”

Throughout the record, Chatterjee anchors the record with melodies steeped in classical raga and intricate Carnatic rhythmic architecture, while Lettieri counters with effects-driven guitar lines that weave shimmering, pulsing textures. The record leans heavily into cinematic storytelling and deep traditional roots, highlighted by a two-part tribute to the legendary percussionist Ustad Zakir Hussain and ambitious music videos tracking a visual transition from live-action Indian mysticism to a mythic, anime-style instrument face-off. Throughout the rest of the album, geographic distances collapse into a singular musical frequency as the duo jumps fluidly between genres and regional acoustic traditions. This sonic convergence expands into themes of profound spiritual awakening, while mapping out bold creative intersections where raw Indian folk traditions seamlessly handshake with Western country and Americana roots music. The collaborative tapestry further challenges conventional boundaries by navigating complex, asymmetric seven-beat rhythmic cycles for deep melodic exploration, ultimately capturing a liberating sense of flight where rigid classical structures completely dissolve, allowing pure human instinct and cross-continental training to align.

Feathered Creatures is a masterclass in global musical convergence, proving that distance disappears when master musicians find a shared frequency. The album is available now on all major global streaming platforms.

Trackisting

1. Rise Enshrined - Rooted in Raga Basant Mukhari, this opening track represents a spiritual awakening. The piece masterfully evolves from an ethereal, ambient soundscape into a heavy, pulsating groove.

2. Shallow Water Blackout - Based on Raga Miyan ki Todi and partly inspired by Shankar Mahadevan's iconic song "Breathless," this high-intensity trance piece explores absolute immersion and losing oneself in an uninterrupted musical flow. Recorded almost entirely in one continuous take, it is accompanied by a mystical visual journey. The video opens with a Bengal tiger moving through a sacred forest, transitioning to Chatterjee playing his sitar in a pond as temple ruins awaken and a glowing mandala form. Reality then shifts into a cinematic anime style where Lettieri enters via an animated levitation sequence for a mythic guitar-sitar face-off. The final reveal transforms the entire world into a giant, living sitar.

3. Bridges - This track perfectly embodies the album's core ethos of connection without dilution. It directly intersects traditional Indian folk melodies with Western country, roots, and Americana music styles.

4. 9000 Miles - Addressing the literal physical distance between Mumbai and Fort Worth, Texas, this composition expands a simple melodic riff into heavy jazz-funk territory. Here, Lettieri’s signature groove locks directly into Chatterjee’s intricate Carnatic syncopations to turn geography into pure artistic convergence.

5. Sarod 7s - Featuring guest sarod player Pratik Srivastava, this track utilizes a challenging seven-beat rhythmic cycle. It creates a lush, raga-based landscape built specifically for deep, fluid melodic exploration.

6. Hibiscus - The first part of a profound, two-track tribute to the legendary Ustad Zakir Hussain. The composition builds upon a traditional rhythmic lehra, completely transforming it into a fiery, Raga Yaman-based riff.

7. Soar - Capturing the exact moment when rigid structure dissolves and pure instinct take over. The track evokes the literal sensation of gliding as years of classical discipline, training, and collaboration seamlessly align.

8. Feathered Creatures - The title track serves as the culmination of the record's overarching vision. It delivers a primal, collaborative, and spiritual flight that brings the duo’s individual sonic identities into total alignment.

9. ZH -The central grand tribute to Ustad Zakir Hussain and the album's closing statement. The track fuses the emotional weight of Raga Bhairavi with raw, heavy grunge-groove energy. Blending Indian classical roots with a driving jazz-funk vocabulary, the piece captures how Zakir Hussain's legendary rhythmic spirit continues to echo across the global musical landscape.