Shashaa Tirupati and Elephant Gym Team Up for Math Rock on ‘Jhalleyaa’

By any stretch of imagination, a collaboration between a Bollywood playback singer and a Taiwanese math rock band would be outlandish. You couldn’t see it coming, except that singer happens to be artist Shashaa Tirupati, who’s always had an eye out for unconventional music.

To that end, Tirupati and Taiwan’s math rock favorites Elephant Gym have released “Jhalleyaa,” their first song together, featuring Punjabi lyrics by Vayu. The vocalist says about the song, “‘Jhalleyaa’ has a melodically and lyrically carefree sentiment to it, that quintessential Sufi character, and I knew the traditional route was exactly the one I didn’t want to take when it came to the arrangements of the song.”

By the singer’s own admission, there was a certain “commercial Sufi-Punjabi” quality to “Jhalleyaa” but she sought to tack it on to a “new soundscape,” which led her to look for bands around the globe to charge up the song compared to her quieter, more intimate singer-songwriter material like her 2022 EP I’m Sorry, Heart. She adds, “I chanced upon Elephant Gym and saw one of their live performances on YouTube. I think it was the Audiotree Live Session they played.. and I was blown. I reached out to them knowing ‘Jhalleyaa’ would be the track I’d kill to perform with them.”

Elephant Gym’s drummer Chia-Chin Tu says they were unaware of Tirupati and her work, but were pleasantly surprised when they heard the initial demo. “Her singing abilities left us truly amazed; many vocal techniques and melodies were entirely fresh to us. As music creators, being inspired and moved by music we had never encountered before is a rare and precious experience,” the drummer adds. At the end of it, they managed to create a piece they now love dearly.

Guitarist Tell Chang adds that he was somewhat exposed to Indian music – particularly “yoga music” since his wife is a yoga teacher and “some Bollywood songs” famous in Taiwan – but Tirupati’s vocals opened a door. “When we first listened to the demo from Shashaa, we were stunned. Her vocal combines the lively energy and the gentle, ancient at the same time,” he says.

Tirupati also says she was pretty much oblivious to math rock until Tell Chang – who ended up as arranger on “Jhalleyaa” – introduced her to bands like Japanese act Toe.  Tirupati adds, “I may’ve binge-heard Toe as well as various other post-rock bands for a month after his intro to the style. And yes, being a sucker for the unleashed and uninhibited expression when it comes to my independent endeavors, I was ecstatic to hear what ‘Jhalleyaa’ would look like in those clothes.”

There’s plenty of math rock calisthenics on play in terms of grooves, melodies and rhythms, with Tirupati’s vocals sitting atop it all to make for an intriguing song that goes beyond just placing vocals above a readymade song.  Bassist KT Chang says, “As far as we understand it, this song hopes to encourage people who are restricted by social frameworks and old customs. No matter who you are, what language you speak, or where you grow up, we all have free souls.”

While the song took almost two years to write, record and release, Tirupati says that Vayu had written the lyrics for her about a decade ago, originally called “Chhalleya.” She adds that the brief was “to create a sense of power in vulnerability, space in commotion and integration in disintegration.”

“Jhalleyaa” will be followed by 11 more independent releases for Tirupati, including her next song on December 12th with singer-producer Kanishk Seth and singer-songwriter and actor Sanjeeta Bhattacharya. She says about her upcoming material, “These songs cover a variety of vernaculars, including Hindi, English, Tamil and Punjabi. [They] are unapologetic representatives of my naivities, fuck-ups, sentimental and mental predispositions at my raw, introverted core.”

Elephant Gym, for their part, are presently on a world tour – although that doesn’t include an India date just yet. Tell hopes that the collaboration gives them a chance to find more fans in India and says they’re open to bookings in the country. “We used to receive invitations from Indian music festivals but the schedule didn’t match. We are now trying to find an opportunity to tour India. Hopefully, we can play ‘Jhalleyaa’ with Shashaa together.”  

Watch the video for “Jhalleyaa.” Stream the song on Spotify here.