The international ensemble SHAKTI celebrated their 50th anniversary with an unprecedented world tour that followed their first new studio recording in more than 45 years, the brilliant GRAMMY award-winning album, This Moment. Just over a year after the tour’s end, “a curtain came down on a monumental part of my life,” recalls guitarist, composer, and Shakti Co-Founder John McLaughlin. “On December 15th, 2024,” he continues, “after 55 years of countless concerts, recordings, travels, meals, and laughter together, my Indian Brother Zakir, departed.”
In recognition of Hussain’s immense contributions – not only as a percussionist and a friend but as a catalyst to greater human understanding through the universal language of music – Shakti’s remaining members have prepared one last offering: Mind Explosion: 50th Anniversary Tour Live, via Abstract Logix out this Friday, August 1, 2025. The recording features the final Shakti lineup of McLaughlin (guitar, guitar synth), Hussain (tabla), vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram. Mind Explosion was recorded throughout the 2023 tour and includes expansive and invigorating explorations of material spanning the full length of Shakti’s repertoire.
“I think every single musician in India would have loved to be part of Shakti,” explains vocalist Mahadevan. “I thank the almighty that I was the chosen one to be part of this group, with these maestros who are not only musicians – they are my gurus.”
“What else can epitomize the history of Shakti if not the final live recording?” McLaughlin asks. “The title Mind Explosion is very close in meaning to the Sanskrit word nirvana – mind blowing in the sense of overwhelming bliss or ecstasy. Now that the album is completed, I find the title to be absolutely appropriate: The music is heartfelt, deliriously joyful, and masterly all at the same time. It is our greatest achievement.”
“For me,” Mahadevan echoes, “the music of Shakti is an amazing combination of soul, complexity, precision, and high level of musicality. It was like being in a musical university of life.”
“I have had quite a number of musical formations, some of them truly outstanding in my career,” McLaughlin reflects – looking back on a journey that includes not only his own classic solo albums and epochal recordings and performances with his Mahavishnu Orchestra but also trajectory-altering forays alongside Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Carlos Santana, Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia, and others. “But,” he concludes, “Shakti stands above all of them.”
McLaughlin recently shared with Music Radar, “You can imagine losing somebody after so much time is hard,but we have the record, and that is joyful and beautiful, like Shakti.” He continued,“The band was based on the precepts of love, affection, joy, and excitement. And because of that, every night was amazing.”
“There are no words to express my deep sense of gratitude to the musical power of Shakti, for now and forever more, we walk in the universal path of music, love and togetherness that they carved out for all of us,” says, Souvik Dutta, Founder of Abstract Logix who produced Shakti’s 50th Anniversary Tour and their Grammy Winning album, This Moment.
