Composer, songwriter, producer, club DJ, and multi-instrumentalist Nitin Sawhney is a latter-day Renaissance man.

Always challenging and pushing back the boundaries of music, his eight studio albums and live shows have attracted global acclaim and have seen him earn 15 major awards for his work in the fields of music, film, dance, ballet, theatre, circus and even computer games.

His latest project, however, has seen this classically-trained pianist and flamenco guitarist take on a new mantle – that of social commentator.

London Undersound is a musical portrait of his home city, written as a reaction to the terrorist bombings of 2005 and the subsequent fallout.

Starring a wealth of guest artists – among them Paul McCartney, Imogen Heap, Anoushka Shankar, and Ojos de Brujo, the album features artwork by friend and collaborator, sculptor Antony Gormley.

It's a startling and moving album. But perhaps the most poignant track is the first – Days of Fire, on which North London singer and rapper Natty recounts the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Underground. It is a deeply personal account, as well it should be.

“Natty was in Tavistock Square when the bus exploded in front of him, and by a bizarre coincidence, two weeks later he was a couple of train carriages behind Jean Charles de Menezes when he got shot,” says Nitin.

“It's been interesting seeing the strength of feeling about what happened that day. People are affronted by the notion that we can accept this random execution of an innocent person. “Lying is not acceptable, and a lot of truth has been suppressed.

“But it's important to keep clear and transparent about what happened. I'm actually now working on the music for a film about Jean Charles, with the support of his family."

The album offers a brooding, but intensely heartfelt, impression of a city Nitin loves, but which he believes has changed for the worse.

"The album itself is how I feel about London and how the collaborators feel about London. There isn't so much a message as pure feeling. London is becoming more of an Orwellian place to live in. “There's a more insidious intrusion into civil liberty. After those events I decided to do an album, but I didn't want to do a really intense one. I wanted to get away from the media saturation.

"When we are saturated with information and misinformation we can become desensitised to the real fundamental issues. But there are things I want to say and explain, and I wanted to do that with other people.

“I talked to them about how I felt and wove that into the fabric of the album.

"London is a diverse place and a cohesive melting pot of different ideas and diverse experiences and backgrounds.

“The album is a microcosm of what London has been through in the past few years, which, itself, is a microcosm of global issues.

“I'm frustrated by a lot of things, such as over-simplification,” he adds. And that extends to the way he has been treated as a musician – lazily labelled a world music artist, because of his Asian roots.

“I don't fit into any one box,” he explains. “I still get chucked into the world music category, just by virtue of being called Nitin Sawhney.

“ I don't think they would do that if I was called John Simon. In places like HMV it means you can only find my albums by walking upstairs to some moth-eaten corner of the shop.

"But why isn't all music called world music? Massive Attack worked with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, but no one would dream of categorising them as world music.

"I have the same problem, overall, with the way we perceive the world.

“It's about brainwashing and prioritisation of the news. Many people die in India, but we talk about Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand.

"The BBC says it is telling people what they want and are interested in, but it's self-fulfilling. If 150 people die in London it would be the only thing we hear about.

“But it's all to do with the idea of proximity, and race.

"We take these things for granted, but it strikes me that no one tries to shake that up."

Tonight Nitin and a clutch of guest artists come to Oxford, for a show which has been described as less a gig than a live experience. It follows his powerful performance on the BBC's Electric Proms.

So how do they compare?

“People who have seen them both, say they have enjoyed the live show more. It's just the core band and a few key people.

“I wasn't sure how it was going to work, but it's been getting a fantastic reaction. There's a cohesive sound and feeling.”

He’s content to be given the Renaissance man tag, saying: “The Renaissance was about change, reawakening and an influx of ideas. And if people perceive what I'm doing as something similar, then that's all good.

“I don't believe in the barriers erected around us by people whose interests are selfish.”

Nitin Sawhney plays the Oxford Carling Academy tonight. Doors open at 6.30pm. Tickets are £16.50 from the venue.