India, Sept. 16 -- When percussionist Ganesh Murali Iyer was asked to fly down to Goa for a recording session, all he knew was that it involved a UK-based artist. The brief was deliberately vague, leaving him to wonder if it might have any Indian influence at all. Only a couple of days before the session did he discover the scale of it-he would be playing the ghatam on Ed Sheeran's new album Play. "That completely blew my mind," he says.

For Ganesh, bringing the sound of the ghatam into a global pop record was nothing short of surreal. "It feels surreal that people all around the globe are now exposed to the sounds of India and the Ghatam through this record. I'm glad I could make a small contribution to Indian classical music in this wa...