The tracks are atmospheric because they were all recorded pretty late at night in a space of solitude,” poet, novelist and musician Jeet Thayil tells us about Speak, Amnesia, an album he has collaborated for with contemporary artist Yashas Shetty. Thayil met Shetty at the end of 2021 at an event at the Sangam House International Writers’ Residency. Interested in creating an album together, and having discovered that they lived across the street from each other, the duo met once every fortnight for a year at Shetty’s house, which Thayil tells us is a kind of studio with all kinds of exotic string, percussion and wind instruments. “The space lent itself to the atmospheric sound that we put together.”

Some of the music in the album is instrumental. “I’d play the guitar, or Yashas would come up with a riff or melodic figure, and that’s how it would begin,” says Thayil. “There are bits in there that are wholly improvised and in-the-moment. It felt like we were working subconsciously, without the usual controls, until later during editing and production.”