"I'll try being specific and avoid sounding vague or profound," Kolkata-based singer-songwriter Jaimin Rajani says of his sound. "'Soft-Rock' and 'Folksy Ballads' cover the majority of my songs, if not all".

It's 5 AM on a Wednesday morning and Jaimin's email to me has the no-nonsense camaraderie of old friends talking about life and work even though he and I have spoken only a few times on social media before. This easy-going, amicable character bleeds into his songs which he writes and sings in conversational Indian English. Although he writes songs into the Western traditions of folk and rock music, his choice of writing and singing in Indian English gives his music a sense of belonging and rootedness to the land — even though they might otherwise sound like sound right at home in the storied music cafés that existed in Manhattan’s East Village in the Sixties.

Jaimin is old-fashioned like that. He counts John Prine, Mark Knopfler, Buddy Holly, Neil Finn, Billy Joel, and Gordon Lightfoot among his influences. “These are some artists I’m quite jealous of,” Jaimin says. “They’re all masterful melody makers and lyricists, and I often find myself wishing I could write like them." Like his idols, he’s a singer-songwriter through and through.

“I love The Beatles for their melodies and arrangements, JJ Cole for his soundscape, CSNY for their vocal harmonies, Paul Simon for how perfectly he makes the words fit within the meter of a melody, George Harrison for the frugality in his guitar playing and the otherworldly beauty in his songs, and Bob Dylan for his phrasing,” Jaimin says. “I use Travis Picking in many of my songs, which is a fingerpicking technique I took to because of Dylan."

You’ll know what he means when you listen to his music. There is a lot of early Dylan and Leonard Cohen in 'Cutting Loose' (2022) — Jaimin’s first, and so far only, studio album. The songs are preoccupied with genre tropes like romance, heartbreak, life, and death; they are slice-of-life snapshots from the life of a young man — the lives of all young men everywhere. Like all worthwhile works of art, they build on what has come before.

“I think every songwriter and composer who’s true to their artistry must work towards finding and establishing a distinctive sound that becomes their unique identifier,” Jaimin says. “It can be a long journey that requires both intent and patience, but in the end, resonance is rewarding, regardless of the reception”.

At 33, Jaimin is something of a late-bloomer in the music scene, having released ‘Cutting Loose’ when he was 31-years-old. And yet, for someone who wasn’t born and brought up in the scene (he’s an MBA by education), he has worked with a remarkable roster of collaborators like Rahul Ram (of Indian Ocean), Abhay Sharma (of The Revisit Project), Rohan Ganguli (of Supersonics), classical guitarist Deepak Castelino, and sitar player Kalyan Majumdar, with whom he has worked on multiple occasions.

For Jaimin, the goal of a collaboration is to create a cohesive soundscape to enhance what is already there. It is an integral part of his process. “By the time I finish composing, I usually have in mind a sense of the instrumentation I want for a song, and accordingly I reach out to others to add those elements,” he says. “I recently collaborated with National Animal, an artist who primarily works in electronic and pop music, which is very different from my style. I knew what I wanted, and he helped bring those ideas to life. I think it’s the most exciting collaboration I’ve done so far”.

In 2023, Jaimin was invited to join the Recording Academy / GRAMMYs as a voting member in an emphatic recognition of his music-making talent. But the his path so far has not been without its challenges. “In the realm of non-film music, it’s almost godforsaken,” Jaimin says of the place of singer-songwriters in India’s music landscape. “Majority of the songs go unheard or gain minimal reach amidst the industry’s constant influx of music, especially when we don’t conform to industry trends like danceable grooves or costly music videos”.

How does he see his distinctively folk sound — with its old-fashioned, out of time, out of place quality (though in the best kind of way) — cutting through all that? Jaimin seems unfazed by the question.

“My school of music is a far cry from what's mainstream today, and on top of that, my songs are in English, which has a much smaller audience here than Hindi music,” he says. “But my driving force is the feeling I get after completing the final draft of a song; there is no greater high than creating something purely intuitive, and uncontrived."

For now, he’s focused on his latest single, ‘Seven Sins’, which features American mandolinist Patrick Fitzsimons, and Jaimin’s longtime collaborators Subharaj on the guitar, Arka Chakraborty on the piano, and Arjun on the drums.

“It's a cheeky tune with playful lyrics, embracing the full spectrum of human folly with a wink and a grin. The song is a cheerful confession of embodying all seven cardinal sins, highlighting chronic procrastination, overindulgence, and total lack of self-control. It’s a fun, self-deprecating exploration of our impulses, making it the perfect anthem for anyone who’s ever felt a little too human.”

Follow Jaimin Rajani here.

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