Chennai has always been a city of two stages. On one sits the Carnatic sabha, with its ragas, its mridangam and its rules; on the other, the rock and jazz clubs where guitars do the talking. Jatayu built a band in the space between them. Four musicians who met at a music academy set out to write guitar music based on konnakol, the spoken rhythmic syllables of Carnatic percussion, and ended up taking that idea from Chennai to Fuji Rock in Japan, Lollapalooza India and festivals across Asia. On Spotify's Rock in India playlist today, "The Wick", the seven-minute opener of their 2025 EP Jewel Tones, sits at No. 79. This is the story of a mostly instrumental band that made Carnatic grammar sound like the future.

Jatayu at a glance

  • Based in: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
  • Line-up: Sahib Singh (guitar, bandleader), Shylu Ravindran (Carnatic guitar, kanjira, mridangam), Kashyap Jaishankar (bass), Manu Krishnan (drums, vocals)
  • Formed: current line-up came together in 2016 (The Hindu, 2019)
  • Sound: Carnatic melody and konnakol rhythm played through jazz, rock, funk and psychedelic music, mostly without lyrics
  • Releases: Chango Tales EP (2019), Moodswings EP (2021), Jewel Tones EP (2025), plus singles including "Thoppai Vibes", "Restless", "No Visa Needed" and "The Wild Kids"
  • Rock in India: "The Wick" at No. 79 (checked 14 October 2026, about 11:00 AM IST)
  • Stages: Fuji Rock Festival 2023, Lollapalooza India 2024, Echoes of Earth 2025

A bedroom project at Swarnabhoomi

Jatayu began, by its own members' account, as one musician's private experiment. Speaking to the Free Press Journal in 2024, Sahib Singh said the band "started off as Ravindran's bedroom project", and explained how the four found each other: "His father Prapancham Ravindran taught mridangam and konnakol (spoken Carnatic rhythmic syllables) at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, Chennai, and we met there."

Shylu Ravindran's idea was simple to state and hard to execute: write guitar compositions based on konnakol. "There is a lot of mathematics involved in these rhythm-based structures," he told the paper. Singh later described the method in plainer terms to The Hindu: "As a predominantly instrumental band, we use rhythms from Carnatic literature and incorporate them into Western instruments; that is at the core of who we are." Even the band's logo, he said, "is a combination of the four main arithmetic symbols."

The name came last. According to the Free Press Journal, they chose Jatayu not simply because it is the name of the great bird of the Ramayana, but because it represented music with a strong traditional Indian element that still soared into contemporary territory. The influences the members listed in the same interview show how wide that territory is: M.D. Ramanathan, Palghat Mani Iyer and Zakir Hussain on one side; Jimi Hendrix, Baiju Dharmajan and Fela Kuti on the other.

Chango Tales: a debut told without words

The band spent its first years playing live. When the debut EP Chango Tales arrived in January 2019, it came as a concept record: five tracks following a character named Chango through love, wonder, danger and release, told entirely without lyrics.

"Shringara" opens with Ravindran and Singh, as The Hindu's review put it, "climbing up and down Carnatic scales on the fretboard", while drummer Manu Krishnan and bassist Kashyap Jaishankar showed "virtuoso level rhythmic chops" to match. Swiss jazz duo Krond-Flast brought violin and saxophone to "May I?", and German violinist Holger Jetter, whom the Free Press Journal describes as Auroville-settled, darkened the two-part "Pazhi" before the closing "Chango" turned the story towards light. The Hindu's verdict was that Jatayu "look like they can take on a lot more in the jazz-rock space all by themselves."

Rolling Stone India agreed. Its February 2019 new-music round-up called the EP "a sublime, heady blend" of "progressive rock, fusion, Carnatic and psychedelic", and the magazine later placed Chango Tales on its list of the 10 best Indian EPs of 2019, noting that the band "take a page from the book of greats like John McLaughlin, but also carve out their own voice in the process."

Moodswings, Restless and the art of collaboration

Rolling Stone India reported in March 2021 that the four-track Moodswings gathered material the band had played for years; its title track was being performed as early as 2017. Ravindran recalled the era those songs came from, when the band would sit down to work out "mathematics, arrangements and raga/harmony discussions." His punchline: "It would always end up in arguments." The violinist Akshay Ganesh, who had featured on the 2020 single "Thoppai Vibes", returned on the title track.

Collaboration has been the band's habit from the start. "Our fondness for collaborations began then only," Singh said of the Chango Tales sessions. The December 2021 single "Restless" paired them with vocalist-composer Harini Iyer and mridangam player Praveen Sparsh, with an animated video by illustrator Pooja Sreenivasan. "The goal is to create new sonic scapes with people from all over the world, understanding culture through music," Singh told Rolling Stone India. Later singles followed that line outward: "No Visa Needed" with Taku Yabuki in January 2023, and "The Wild Kids" in November 2023, which the Free Press Journal says features Taiwanese singer Putad Pihay.

In March 2021 and again in January 2022, the band told Rolling Stone India that a debut full-length album was on the way. No full-length is listed on Apple Music to date; instead came a steady run of EPs and singles, which may be the truer shape of how this band works.

How Jatayu took konnakol to Fuji Rock

The leap came in 2023, when Jatayu appeared on the line-up of Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, listed on the festival's official 2023 history page. Speaking to The Hindu the following year, Singh recalled that a 4,000-strong Japanese audience sang along with a band that has almost no lyrics. The trick was konnakol. "Basically, we use konnakol (the spoken component of metre) and ask them to repeat it with us. The call-and-response we do with the crowd is how we jam with them," he said. "It is basically konnakol but we describe it as math rock for audiences abroad."

The band's own biography lists further stops at Wonderfruit in Thailand, IOMMa in Réunion, Hear Here Festival in Taiwan and Axean Music Festival in Singapore. At home, Jatayu were named on the Lollapalooza India 2024 line-up in Mumbai, though Singh admitted to the Free Press Journal that the band had to get over "the fiasco" of being asked to cut their set drastically because of some confusion. The same year, they won the Indian Music Diaries award for Best Rock/Metal Artist of the Year. The band has since released Road to Fuji Rock, a documentary directed by Gayathrie Shankar about that journey from Chennai to the mountains of Japan.

Jewel Tones and "The Wick"

Jewel Tones, released on 23 November 2025, is the band's most direct conversation with the tradition it grew up in. Its four tracks, "The Wick", "The Triumph", "The Mirage" and "The Resolve", rework Carnatic compositions through jazz, funk and rock across roughly 28 minutes. Music critic Narendra Kusnur gave the EP four stars, singling out "The Mirage", where Thyagaraja's "Marugelara O Raghava" in raga Jayantasri is fused with guitar and bass and Manu Krishnan's vocals are, in his words, "brilliantly controlled." "The Triumph" works in raga Kadanakuthuhalam.

"The Wick" is the track on Rock in India, and it earns the spot. The band describes it as "the quiet spark at the centre of Jewel Tones," inspired by true events from their drummer's life: a boy "facing shadows only he can see." The Indian Music Diaries heard chanting give it "a sacred vibe" before "the whole thing erupts" halfway through into heavy riffs. Its video, directed by Athul Prabhakaran, was supported by Serendipity Grants 2024-2025, according to the band's credits.

The live band has grown with the music. Reviewing Echoes of Earth in Bengaluru in December 2025, Rolling Stone India described a "six-piece iteration" of Jatayu with a horn section, playing from Jewel Tones alongside "Mood Swings", "Chango Tales" and a closing "Shringara" that had the crowd grooving.

Why Jatayu matters to Indian independent rock

Bands that mix Carnatic music with Western instruments are often lumped together, and Jatayu have heard the comparisons with Agam and Karthick Iyer's IndoSoul. "Our individual styles are totally different," Jaishankar told the Free Press Journal. The difference is in the priorities. Where many fusion acts lead with a voice and a melody, Jatayu lead with rhythm: the spoken mathematics of konnakol, translated to fretboards and a drum kit.

Manu Krishnan put the band's arc most clearly to ETV Bharat in 2025. Early Jatayu, he said, "felt like a music laboratory", with ragas meeting rock and jazz energy "in an unpolished way." Then "the sound settled into its own language. Now it isn't genres trying to meet. It's one voice that grew out of all those influences. We moved from experimenting to expressing." He was careful not to overclaim: "We're not here to claim we're the first at anything. We're part of a newer wave taking South Indian Carnatic ideas into a contemporary space. The music feels local, but it reads globally."

That last line is the case for Jatayu in a sentence. They sit naturally beside the instrumental ambition of Sutej Singh and the regional pride of the bands in our guide to regional rock bands in India, and they have done it the way so much of this scene has, as self-releasing artists building their own sound and their own route to an audience. Their records carry the band's own ℗ line, and Kusnur lists Jewel Tones as self-released. Our features on the DIY roots of Indian rock and on releasing music without a record label trace how deep that tradition runs.

Start with "The Wick". Then go back to "Shringara" and listen to the guitars climb.

FAQ

Who are the members of Jatayu?

Jatayu are Sahib Singh (guitar and bandleader), Shylu Ravindran (Carnatic guitar, kanjira and mridangam), Kashyap Jaishankar (bass) and Manu Krishnan (drums and vocals). Live, they have expanded to a six-piece with horns.

Where is the band Jatayu from?

Jatayu are from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The members met at the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, where Shylu Ravindran's father taught mridangam and konnakol.

What kind of music does Jatayu play?

Jatayu play mostly instrumental music that blends Carnatic melody and konnakol rhythm with jazz, rock, funk and psychedelic music. Abroad, Sahib Singh has said, they describe it as math rock.

What EPs has Jatayu released?

Jatayu have released three EPs: Chango Tales (2019), Moodswings (2021) and Jewel Tones (2025), alongside singles such as "Thoppai Vibes", "Restless", "No Visa Needed" and "The Wild Kids".

Has Jatayu played Fuji Rock Festival?

Yes. Jatayu appeared at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan in 2023, and their documentary Road to Fuji Rock chronicles that journey.

What is "The Wick" by Jatayu about?

"The Wick" opens the Jewel Tones EP. The band says it was inspired by true events from their drummer's life and describes a boy facing shadows only he can see, with the music growing from a whisper into a blaze.

Is Jatayu on the Rock in India playlist?

Yes. "The Wick" was at No. 79 on Spotify's Rock in India playlist when checked on 14 October 2026.

Sources

Cover: Jatayu, official band press photo from the band’s website, courtesy Jatayu / Jatayu Music LLP (photographer not credited at source). Cropped and resized to 1200×630; metadata stripped. Source: https://www.jatayumusic.com/about.