🎧 Approved: Sijya

South Asian composer, producer and graphic artist Sijya makes music that feels as multidimensional as her practice. That cross-disciplinary instinct carries through to her sound - at once fragile, immersive and sharply original, with vocal tones and sonic instincts reminiscent of Tirzah.

Her new single ‘Do I Know’ is a prime example. A spontaneous creation, the track features what sounds like a guitar riff... though no guitars were used. “Funnily enough, people have often referred to parts in my music as guitar sounds and riffs”, she says. “I guess I’ve always been drawn to electric guitars and I’m maybe always trying to make that sound with my synths”. 

There’s a friction at play: synths pushed through battered guitar pedals brush against quiet, unguarded vocals, lending the track an intimacy edged with static.

The accompanying video, directed by Sukanya Baskar, explores “the idea of ineffective armour”, brass as both a physical material and metaphor. A surreal, dreamlike portrait of the artist’s relationship with visibility, vulnerability and public presentation, the film follows Sijya through a reimagined Delhi. 

As Baskar puts it, “Forged and worn over time - a brass armour glistens on a figure standing in the doorway... The artist navigates a Delhi reframed through its heterotopias, disturbed yet empowered in her presentation of otherness”. 

🎧 Watch the video for ‘Do I Know’