Rolling Stone India gave Neenillade one word in its 8 October new-music roundup, and it was the right one: euphoric. That is a strange thing to say about a song whose title means "without you" in Kannada, a song its makers describe as being about losing the people who matter. It is also the reason the single deserves more than a line in a weekly list. Ashwin Mandoth and Vivek Kiran have made a grief song that refuses to whisper, sung in a language that national indie discovery still treats as a regional side door, and released it with no label on the ownership line, only Mandoth's own name.

Neenillade at a glance

  • Artists: Ashwin Mandoth and Vivek Kiran, Bengaluru, featuring Gaana Samskruth
  • Release: Neenillade (feat. Gaana Samskruth) – Single, one track, 6 October 2026; ℗ 2026 Ashwin Mandoth
  • Length: 4:26
  • Apple Music genre tag: Kannada; Rolling Stone India files it as Kannada rock
  • Lyrics: Rakesh Kumar, per The Hindu; Apple Music lists Rakesh as songwriter and vocalist
  • Spotify, checked 15 October 2026, about 12:35 PM IST: Ashwin Mandoth and Vivek Kiran each show about 2.4K monthly listeners
  • Playlists, checked 15 October 2026, about 12:33 PM IST: not on Fresh Finds India, not on Rock in India

Why a Kannada rock single matters this week

Read the two Spotify lists this site keeps returning to, and the language map is plain. On the 15 October midday snapshot, Fresh Finds India's 50 slots are dominated by Hindi and English titles: Bhool Ja, Do Pal, Khatt, Dil Ki Yaari, Tera Naam, Tu Na Aayi. Rock in India's 100 slots carry more of the country, with Bengali from Fossils and Kerala heavyweights such as Thaikkudam Bridge and The Down Troddence, but we matched every title we could against Apple Music and found none that Apple files under Kannada. Eleven of the 150 slots returned no clean match, so treat that as a careful count, not a census. Even so, it is a striking result for a country where Bengaluru has been an indie capital for three decades.

Bengaluru is not absent. Thermal And A Quarter sits at No. 1 on Rock in India with Lies, and Swarathma, Raghu Dixit, Pineapple Express and Agam are all on the list. But the city's presence there is largely English, Hindi, instrumental or classical-fusion. The Kannada rock line that Swarathma and Raghu Dixit helped prove viable, which we traced in our regional rock bands of India feature, is not what today's discovery machinery is surfacing from the city. Neenillade is a test of whether that machinery can hear it.

That is why we are reviewing a song that is on neither playlist. We said the same in Spotify's Indian indie gatekeepers: the lists are powerful, but they are snapshots, not the scene. A Bengaluru Kannada single that Rolling Stone India picked out in the same roundup as Tejas's Ribcage has earned a closer listen on its own terms.

What Neenillade actually does

The central idea is simple and good. Absence, the pair told Indulge Express, is never quiet: outside it is an empty chair and an unanswered call, inside it is loud and restless. So the song does the opposite of what a Kannada ballad about loss is expected to do. Vivek Kiran described the sound to The Hindu as distorted guitar and heavy strings, because the pain is too intense for anything smaller. The pair say the song grew out of a dark piano idea meeting raw guitars at Vivek's place, built across several writing sessions over more than a year.

The credits show how much of that is in their own hands. Apple Music lists Vivek Kiran on lead vocals, guitars and bass, Mandoth on piano, keys, synthesiser and programming, Vivek's brother Deepak Kiran on drums and mixing, with mastering shared between the brothers, and Dhruva MB on recording and backing vocals. That is a family-and-friends rock record in the old Bengaluru sense, made by players rather than assembled from sessions.

Even the 30-second store preview tells you the shape: the band drops back for a few seconds and then returns at full weight. That push and release is the song's grammar. At 4:26 it also takes its time in a format that usually rewards three minutes and out, and the pair spend part of that length on an instrumental break most singles would cut.

The solo section is the song's argument

The pair name the instrumental break after the second chorus as the emotional peak, and they are right to. Vivek takes the first solo on guitar, a warm tone with what they call an 80s/90s feel and a short shred in the middle; Mandoth answers on keyboard, fast and steady. On paper that sounds like nostalgia. But a guitar-then-keys handover is a conversation, and in a song about someone no longer in the room, two friends trading the lead is the most direct way to show company without saying a word. It is the one place where the record's euphoria and its grief become the same thing.

Our reservation is with the claim the pair make about translation. "Music doesn't need translation," they told Indulge Express, and the arrangement is built to prove it. But a lyric by Rakesh Kumar, a writer Vivek calls underrated, deserves more than to be felt. Non-Kannada listeners get one word, neenillade, and a lot of feeling. Publishing the lyric with an English gloss would cost the artists nothing and give its lyricist the audience he is owed. If the goal is, in their words, to take Kannada indie global, the words have to travel too.

The ℗ line and the title problem

Neenillade is self-released. Apple Music reads ℗ 2026 Ashwin Mandoth, and Spotify lists the single under Mandoth first, with Vivek Kiran and Gaana Samskruth beside him. Gaana Samskruth, Mandoth's student, helped write a section of the pre-chorus, according to The Hindu, and Apple credits Samskruth as songwriter and co-producer. Putting a student in the title credit is a small, generous act, and the scene could use more of it.

Owning the master matters, as we argued in who owns Indian indie music masters. It also means there is no label pushing pitches. The title makes discovery harder still: Apple's own search for Neenillade turns up at least ten other songs called Neenillade or Nee Nillade, many of them Kannada, including a 2023 soundtrack cut by Raghu Dixit and Vasuki Vaibhav. Anyone searching for this record has to know the artists' names first. That is the quiet tax on making music in a language whose most natural titles are already taken, often by film songs.

Who these artists are

Mandoth has been performing since 2016, with more than 250 shows to his name and an opening slot for Jonita Gandhi, according to The Hindu. He was selected to perform in Manchester through the India–U.K. RhythmXchange programme, where Rolling Stone India described him as a keyboardist-composer and part of the rock band Manga. He says he has released three songs with collaborators before, among them Janani (2023) with Vignesh Shankar, yet Neenillade, after a two-and-a-half-year gap, feels like his debut. Vivek Kiran leads the band Table for Four and has played alongside Kunal Ganjawala, Usha Uthup and Mame Khan; he names Zubeen Garg's Beetein Saare Pal as the collaboration he values most. The pair say four or five more songs are ready and that live shows across Bengaluru and other cities are next.

Verdict

Neenillade is a sincere, well-built Kannada rock single with one great idea, grief played loud, and one great moment, the twin solo. It is not trying to be cool, and that is a strength in a discovery culture that often rewards cool over conviction. What it needs now is what its makers already plan: a stage, a printed lyric and a second single that proves the sound is a body of work rather than a one-off. It is the kind of record Fresh Finds India exists to find. As of today it has not found it, and that is worth saying out loud.

FAQ

What does Neenillade mean?

Neenillade means "without you" in Kannada. Ashwin Mandoth and Vivek Kiran describe the song as being about absence and losing important people in any kind of relationship.

Who is on Neenillade?

Ashwin Mandoth and Vivek Kiran, featuring Gaana Samskruth. Lyrics are by Rakesh Kumar per The Hindu, drums and mix by Deepak Kiran, and recording by Dhruva MB, according to Apple Music credits.

When was Neenillade released?

On 6 October 2026, as a one-track single of 4:26, self-released with ℗ 2026 Ashwin Mandoth.

Is Neenillade on Fresh Finds India or Rock in India?

Not as of our check on 15 October 2026 at about 12:33 PM IST. Neither Spotify playlist included it.

Where are Ashwin Mandoth and Vivek Kiran from?

Both are Bengaluru-based musicians. Rolling Stone India describes the release as Kannada rock by Bengaluru-based artists.

Sources

Cover: Ashwin Mandoth & Vivek Kiran, official cover artwork of the Neenillade (feat. Gaana Samskruth) single (℗ 2026 Ashwin Mandoth), via Apple Music. Shown in full on a blurred extension of the same artwork at 1200×630; metadata stripped. Source: https://music.apple.com/in/album/neenillade-feat-gaana-samskruth-single/6805508805.

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