Rafiq Bhatia

Name: Rafiq Bhatia
Start: 2025-10-12T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 3134 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD, United States, Maryland 21224

Schedule

Sun, 12 Oct, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

3134 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD, United States, Maryland 21224 | Baltimore, MD

Guitarist, Producer, and Academy Award-nominated Composer of Son Lux fame
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 “who refuses to be pinned to one genre, culture or instrument,” Bhatia makes sculptural, meticulously crafted music that finds common ground among ecstatic avant-garde jazz, mournful soul, fractured beats and building-shaking electronics. “He treats his guitar, synthesizers, drum machines and electronic effects as architectural elements,” the Times writes. “Sound becomes contour; music becomes something to step into rather than merely follow.”
Bhatia’s first LP for Anti- Records, 2018’s Breaking English, has been described as “stunningly focused…a vibrant new instrumental sound world where crushing beats, nimble guitar licks, and shifting electronic textures coalesce with a visceral bite” (Chicago Reader). His subsequent release, 2020’s Standards Vol. 1 EP, renders repertoire from the American songbook “completely deconstructed, infused with brand new textures and electronic effects, dreamlike and beautiful” (BBC). In 2025 he presents Each Dream, A Melting Door, his first solo release since co-scoring 2023’s Academy Award-winning Best Picture, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Across the EP’s five tracks, Bhatia and pianist Chris Pattishall improvise to conjure environments of sound that evolve at nature’s pace—but crucially—also carry its unpredictable stakes. Unfurling seamlessly like a short film, the result is sculptural, sleepwalking music that rewards patience and deep listening, illuminating fleeting pathways towards the journey inward.