Transglobal Underground reworked the Bengali folk song “Beautiful Lotus” into “The Seahorse”, out on 9 July as their second single of the year. Sheema Mukherjee sings lead and plays sitar. The song hopes for a love it knows it won’t get: the dawn dew on the lotus stirs the feeling, morning light admits it is impossible, and the singer holds onto the hope regardless: “even though I know this, I still hope“.

The collective helped build the template British world-electronic music followed. Signed to Nation Records, they ran tabla, oud and dub basslines through club beats when few others were, and “Temple Head” carried that sound to a mass audience after Coca-Cola used it in a 1996 Olympics advert. Their debut Dream of 100 Nations introduced Natacha Atlas, lead singer on their first four albums, and 2008’s Moonshout won them the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music. Tim Whelan and Hamid Mantu have held the core together across a line-up that has run from studio team to DJ crew to today’s five-piece live band.

Mukherjee trained in Hindustani classical sitar under her uncle, the sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, and has played with the group since 1998. On “The Seahorse” her sitar and her voice carry the melody together, the Bengali source folded into their electronic production.

You can stream and buy “The Seahorse” on Bandcamp, where two more remixes wait alongside it.