Join us at Bar Laika on September 24th for the 21st edition of Playback, featuring Rafiq Bhatia.
The New York Times proclaims, “Rafiq Bhatia is writing his own musical language,” heralding him as “one of the most intriguing figures in music today.” A guitarist, producer, and Academy Award-nominated composer, Bhatia “treats his guitar, synthesizers, drum machines, and electronic effects as architectural elements,” the Times writes.
Bhatia’s 2018 album Breaking English finds common ground between ecstatic avant-jazz, mournful soul, tangled strings, and building-shaking electronics, resulting in a “stunningly focused new sound” (Chicago Tribune). 2020’s Standards Vol. 1 renders repertoire from the American songbook “completely deconstructed, infused with brand new textures and electronic effects” (BBC). In 2025, Bhatia released Each Dream, a Melting Door, a collaborative EP with pianist Chris Pattishall described by TapeOp as “a mind-melting work that pushes the boundaries of ‘jazz.’” 2025 also sees the release of his latest album Environments, conjuring worlds of improvised, organic sound that bloom, melt, crackle, and combust.
Since 2014, Bhatia has been a member of the band Son Lux, releasing several recordings and giving hundreds of performances worldwide. The trio earned Oscar and BAFTA nominations for their score for 2023’s Best Picture-winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once, on which they collaborated with David Byrne, Mitski, and more. Their latest score is for Marvel Studios’ critically-acclaimed Thunderbolts*.
Bhatia has collaborated with a beguiling breadth of artists across generations and disciplines, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Arooj Aftab, Kronos Quartet, Billy Hart, and many others. His work has been commissioned by major institutions and presented in performances across three continents.
Playback is a series of informal listening events curated by Kamran Sadeghi where record labels, musicians, composers, and producers feature recordings from their catalog, and premiere album pre-releases, archives, and other rarities.
For more information, contact laika@e-flux.com.