Femme Music Is Taking On An Industry That Makes It Harder For Women To Build Music Careers

Femme Music came out of Bengaluru in 2025 with Bengaluru-based musician, producer and audio engineer Sanoli Chowdhury, and London-based music industry veteran Vinod Gadher at the helm, building an independent, artist-first label when they noticed that there were plenty of women making music in India, but very little infrastructure helping them actually sustain a career. The label signs, releases, tours and mentors artists through three sub-labels covering different worlds of sound, with A&R that scouts across cities, campuses and bedroom studios and gets behind artists early.

Once an artist is signed, Femme handles the stuff that can otherwise become a headache — studio time, mastering, artwork, distribution, marketing, live bookings and even releases across formats from streaming to vinyl. “I always felt music-making needs a society where we exchange knowledge and help each other to develop a way to help female musicians/artists make a living from music,” says Vinod. For Femme, that means building an ecosystem where women can lead their own careers, own their narratives and work towards sustainable careers in India and beyond.

The label has three sub-labels covering different musical worlds, with Nyima Records focused on indie, pop and singer-songwriter music, Tala Root Records looking towards Indian classical, jazz and instrumental music, and 34 Beat Records exploring electronic, hip-hop, rap and alternative urban sounds. Femme also moved into live music this year with Femme Power, a showcase series for emerging and established women artists, with plans to take the format beyond India. There is a practical side to all of this too: Femme has partnered with AWAL for global distribution and PRS for Music in the UK, while handling mixing and mastering in-house. For Sanoli and Vinod, the larger aim is to build something artists can actually use, from their first demo to a live show and eventually a sustainable career.

Set up to champion singer-songwriters who deserve a global audience, Nyima Records released 'Nyima Vol. 1' last year with 11 artists including Ro Maiti, Sahana Naresh, Tabitha Kagoo and Tiana Tara. Some of those artists have since moved into longer-term deals with Nyima, with Ro Maiti working towards a debut full-length album and Tabitha Kagoo preparing two EPs for 2027. For its second compilation, the label put out an open call and received nearly 300 applications from across South Asia. Sanoli and Vinod listened through all of them, narrowing the list to 30, then 15, before settling on 11 songs. The response also pushed Nyima beyond its original English-language brief. “There are so many incredible female artists across India and South Asia, and the wider we are willing to go with language, the more talent, fresh voices we have access to,” says Sanoli.

'Nyima Vol. 2', released on October 2, is therefore a pretty good snapshot of the kind of artists the label is looking for right now. Chennai-based singer, composer and emerging producer Shruthy Parasarathy opens the 11-track compilation with the Tamil 'Theera Kadal', her first original composition, where Carnatic, pop, jazz, funk and soul come together through contemporary melodies and unexpected rhythmic and harmonic ideas. Ivy Sood follows with the playful pop, R&B and soul of 'Back and Forth', while Zui’s wistful 'Room Will Exist' deals with the isolation that comes after losing someone. Bangalore-based vocal coach and singer Mirael Lia brings a 90s pop-rock sound with her dramatic harmonies, and self-taught Mumbai singer-songwriter Priyanka Shinde’s 'Uljha Jia' becomes Nyima’s first Hindi release, drawing on semi-classical and folk influences. The compilation also includes Nandini Jiva’s 'Wholly Mine', Disha’s 'worn hats', Sangeeta Mardur’s jazz-forward 'In Life', Soumya Jha’s 'Broken Soul' featuring Chayan Adhikari and AKSH, blue.’s 'with you'featuring Kabyo, and Chaitra Kalakrishnan’s 'Earth Story'.

For most of these artists, 'Nyima Vol. 2' is a first release, which makes the compilation manifestation of what Femme was set up to do in the first place: catch people early and give them somewhere to start. There’s no single theme holding the album together, and the 11 tracks span across languages, training, genres and approaches to songwriting. After nearly 300 submissions, Nyima has ended up with a 40-minute record that gives artists their a platform for their debut, with a label behind them that can help turn that first song into a sustainable career. "It would be great to see more artists equipped with the basic knowledge they need to navigate the music industry, whether that means understanding the recording process, learning how music rights work, or recognising the importance of owning their own music," shares Sanoli. "Ultimately, I hope we move away from gatekeeping and towards building a community where artists can learn, grow, and succeed together."

Follow Femme Music here, Nyima Records here and listen to the album below:

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