Bengaluru-based flautist, composer and vocalist Varijashree Venugopal live in concert. Photo: @lpvive/@andresuribenaranjo/@Idartes
Just under a year after fusion artist Varijashree Venugopal released her debut album Vari, she returns with a new live album, featuring reimagined renditions of her songs performed with her band. Vari (The Live Sessions), slated to release on June 20, 2025 via GroundUp Music, is prefaced with an eight-minute live version of “Jaathre.”
Venugopal is releasing solo music for the first time since she was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Global Music Performance category for British multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jacob Collier’s song “A Rock Somewhere” with sitarist-composer Anoushka Shankar earlier this year.
“Jaathre,” which was originally made to represent the vibe of a local village festival, has a spontaneous, improvised energy that feels familiar to those who have seen Venugopal on tour promoting Vari in the past year. Recorded in Bengaluru, the artist is joined by bassist and multi-instrumentalist Michael League (the bandleader of fusion act Snarky Puppy co-produced Vari) , percussionist Pramath Kiran (also co-producer), violinist Apoorva Krishna, mridangam artist Jayachandra, and keyboardist and synth artist Vivek Santhosh.
In addition to “Jaathre,” Vari (The Live Sessions) includes a total of seven songs from the original 2024 album. Venugopal adds, “The entire process of bringing these songs into a live performance format has been exciting and enriching. You will see us sharing so much joy in listening to each other, playing together, and finding our own freedom in blending into the ever-evolving sonic space.”
Michael League adds in his statement about the adaptation process for the live album with a six-member band, “[It] was actually not as difficult as I thought it would be. The record had, in some cases, over 20 musicians performing on a single song, so we had to put quite a bit of thought into how to convey the essence of the composition with one-fifth of the album version’s instrumentation. But because each member of Varijashree’s group is so versatile, it didn’t take long to establish roles and find new ways to tell the same stories. Live, the violin acts not only as a unique melodic voice, but as a kind of harmony vocalist as well. Through use of samples and a very unconventional percussion setup, a wide variety of grooves are able to be crafted in real time without the use of pre-recorded tracks. Ultimately, I think the live experience is its own thing, and I enjoy it just as much as the record.”
Watch the video for “Jaathre (Live)” below.
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