Sarathy Korwar

Born in the United States and raised between Chennai and Ahmedabad before settling in London, Sarathy Korwar first studied the tabla in India before expanding his practice to drums and percussion — a trajectory that informs all his music. His work intersects contemporary jazz, India’s rhythmic traditions, free jazz and electronic music, and, depending on the project, spoken word and hip‑hop, with an approach centered on rhythm and cultural flows. Korwar emerged under his own name with Day to Day (2016), released on Ninja Tune, which blends original compositions with field recordings made among the Siddi community in southern India. In London he also developed the UPAJ Collective, a group of musicians from varied scenes documented on the live release My East Is Your West (2018). With More Arriving (2019) he brought rap and poetic voices from Mumbai, Delhi and London into a framework where Indian percussion, jazz and electronic textures converse; the EP Otherland (2020) continued in that vein. KALAK (2022) pushes this hybrid, cyclical language further, between rhythmic trance, improvisation and electronic production. Over the course of his career he has also collaborated with Shabaka Hutchings, Arun Ghosh and Hieroglyphic Being.