MUMBAI: GIMA (Global Indian Music Academy) Award winner Angaraag Mahanta, more popularly known as Papon, returns to MTV India's Coke Studio for its avant-garde fourth season. Along with that, Papon is also collaborating with Serbian multi-instrumentalist and Byzantine composer – Slobodan Trkulja on new material. He was first introduced to Trkulja in November last year, while performing at the Embassy of India in Belgrade with his band- Papon and the East India Company. Trkulja was the MC (master of ceremonies) at the event.

About the inception of the collaboration, Papon said, “Slobodan came on stage once and sang one of my Assamese songs. Since then, we connected. And now, he is sending me few song ideas and I am sending him some. So, that kind of collaboration is definitely happening.” When asked whether the collaboration will be restricted to only one track, the ‘Inkaar’ singer said, “Right now, we are collaborating on one. We would like to do more because we have created similar melodies that are very different from the western world music. So, I am very excited about our future.”

Papon also said that he is currently working on his third Assamese full-length studio album. His last Assamese album was ‘Sinaaki Osinaaki’ and was released by Times Music. “I am working on my new album. The last one came out in 2009 and it is high time,” said Papon. When pushed more details, he said, “The album sounds very contemporary. It is a mix of electronic and organic with folk and EDM (electronic dance music). The lyrics are different from what I have done so far. It is aiming more towards social messages and telling people what is right and what is wrong.”

In this season of Coke Studio India, Papon joins Amit Trivedi, Clinton Cerejo, Ram Sampath, and new entrees Rekha Bhardwaj, Bollywood music composer duo Sachin-Jingar, MTV Sound Trippin’s Sneha Khanwalkar, Harshdeep Kaur, Pritam and hip hop artiste Raftaar.