Delight

With 2021’s Under the Lilac Sky, Arushi Jain announced herself as a gifted alchemist of electronica and Hindustani music through her mastery of modular synthesizers and classically-trained singing. The concept then was sunsets; now she turns her focus to her personal philosophy of ever-present Delight, to be found wherever one seeks it.

This album is an exploration of ‘Raga Bageshri’, with its implications of love and longing, but the classical element is diffused within flows of downtempo and ambient techno. Jain adds acoustic instruments to her soundscape for the first time – strings, saxophone, flute and marimba all evolve through production to become extensions of the synths. Her voice, too, is warped with a dreamy, reverb-heavy treatment. The distinction between acoustic and electric is never quite clear, the organic and synthetic working together as one organism.

There is a surreal joy inherent in this music, a wonder at all the creative, positive futures we can imagine for ourselves, echoing the ‘utopian scholastic’ aesthetic that will give 90s kids a healthy dose of nostalgia. The optimism is so refreshing! It’s such a feeling of relief. With the world out of balance in so many, seemingly ever-increasing ways, an album that revels in and radiates so much positivity is… well, it’s a delight.