Sijya, will release her new album Leather & Brass via One Little Independent Records (Björk) on September 12th. The EP It was made with the Accidental Records’ Matthew Herbert and Hugh Jones (aka Crewdson). The South Asian composer, producer, and graphic artist’s new single “Do I Know” was a spontaneous creation. “Funnily enough, people have often referred to parts in my music as guitar sounds and riffs. I guess I’ve always been drawn to electric guitars and I’m maybe always trying to make that sound with my synths.”

“Do I Know” is paired with a video that explores “the idea of ineffective armour”. Both in terms of brass as physical object, ornamental, adaptable, as well as metaphorically; Sijya’s relationship to the illusion of safety, being seen, and performing or creating publicly.

Sukanya Baskar, who conceptualised the film, writes; “Forged and worn over time – a brass armour glistens on a figure standing in the doorway. In the act of donning an armour, the artist considers her own relationship with visibility and invisibility as a performer, but also as an individual in the public eye. The material history of brass as a malleable yet sometimes ineffectual metal for matters of strength and protection, sparked a point of departure for this narrative. Performing an auto fictional, absurd, oneiric piece, the artist navigates a Delhi reframed through its heterotopias, disturbed yet empowered in her presentation of otherness.”

Of the EP, Sijya explains; “Finishing this was a long process. Painful. Not just in the way that it is painful to make anything, because it is. Ideas are exciting, but you get over them very fast. Then you trudge along until there’s another spark. Before this EP, I feel like I was messing about. I didn’t think a career in music was possible. I had been circling around music for a long time and making album art as a graphic designer, but ‘Young Hate’ was my first attempt of ‘doing’ any music at all. Now, with this second EP, I feel like I have become a musician. I am now doing this with intention. This EP feels like beginning of me trying to find a sound.”

Sijya has opened for The Cinematic Orchestra on their India tour, performing on stages like Echoes of Earth and India Art Fair, delivering a Boiler Room set, creating a bespoke A/V show at Mumbai’s G5A and touring across the UK to perform at spaces like London’s Tate Modern, Café OTO, Servant Jazz Quarters, Bristol’s Trinity Centre and Dialled-In Festival. The tour also saw her lead workshops for Saffron UK, provide guest mixes for NTS and Noods Radio, and perform at YES Manchester alongside Nabihah Iqbal, for whom Sijya would also release a remix via Ninja Tune.

Sijya
Leather & Brass
Tracklist
One Little Independent Records

I only want to crash
Rust
Do I Know
Safe
Why do you fight me
Tabla

Pre-order Leather & Brass HERE