Music
Artist to watch: Jatayu
In this series, journalist Amit Gurbaxani, with inputs from organisers of gigs across India, writes about one independent music act to watch out for from each of the country’s major cities.
9 min
On Record with Jatayu
Jatayu explain how they came together as a band, what inspires their music, and what they are planning for the future.
City: Chennai
Act: Jatayu
The members of jazz-rock quartet Jatayu have always been outliers.
“We’re the outcasts,” says rhythm guitarist Sahib Singh about the Chennai-based quartet that includes lead guitarist and kanjira player Shylu Ravindran, bassist Kashyap Jaishankar and drummer Manu Krishnan, who also plays the sticks for the metal band Escher’s Knot.
Jatayu stands out in their city’s music scene, which is dominated by Carnatic classical performances and classic rock gigs.
The group’s music blends in elements of both those genres along with those of funk, jazz and metal, as heard on the tracks of their critically acclaimed 2019 EP Chango Tales, which earned them a Best Debut nomination at the inaugural awards organised by popular independent music website The Indian Music Diaries.
The project was conceptualised by Ravindran, who studied Carnatic classical music with his father, a mridangam player. It was through his dad, who taught percussion to Jaishankar, Krishnan and Singh at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music that he met his bandmates. The idea behind Jatayu was to create compositions on the guitar that were based on the Carnatic classical percussion syllables known as konnakol.
Jatayu
© Meghanadan AS
“‘Carnatic fusion’ is a most cliched term,” says Ravindran. “I was very clear [that’s not what we would do]. Our writing is [all about converting] konakkol mathematics [into songs]. That’s what makes us distinct.”
Jatayu took their name from that of the mythological bird in the Ramanaya, but none of the four-piece are particularly religious, they told us. The moniker was chosen, Singh says, because it’s “bold, strong, and has an Indian element”. That’s also an apt description of their music, which is brave in both its theme and structure.
Their five-tune set Chango Tales is essentially a survivor’s tale of “a victim of abuse”. “We wanted to [show that you can] convey emotions with sound, not words,” says Ravindran. Opener ‘Shringara (Love)’ is about the protagonist Chango being “born out of love”; ‘May I’ about the curiosity she experiences during adolescence; and the two-part ‘Pazhi (Blame)’ about the abuse she suffers. Closing tune ‘Chango’ ends the proceedings on an optimistic note. “[It represents her coming] to terms with what has happened and [how] she’s now able to deal with whatever comes her way,” says Kashyap. “It’s a song of hope and perseverance.”
Encouraged by their experience of jamming with other musicians on Chango Tales, which features Swiss Baroque jazz duo Krond-Flast on ‘May I’ and Auroville-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Holger Jetter on ‘Pazhi (Blame)’ and ‘Chango’, Jatayu aims to make their next EP a collaborative effort. “We want to work with different vocalists, rappers and instrumentalists,” says Singh.
They’re simultaneously outlining their third and fourth releases. “We’re also planning an EP of music that we composed earlier and another of old traditional Carnatic songs”. The last of these is likely to damage their reputation among purists further. Says Singh, “It will be majorly dissed by the Carnatic community.”