Jogkauns

British sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun releases his first purely Indian classical album. Recorded at Real World Studios with tabla player Harkiret Bahra, Jogkauns offers a deeply immersive listening experience, rooted in the Imdad-Khani gharana — the North Indian classical tradition in which Degun has trained.

The album is structured as a traditional Indian classical concert, presenting the entirety of the music within a single raag — Raag Jogkauns, a relatively modern evening raag that combines the moods of Raag Jog and Raag Malkauns. The result is a performance that unfolds organically, balancing improvisation with careful attention to the arc of melody and rhythm.

“Playing a purely Indian classical record is very different from my previous projects,” Degun explains. “There’s no hiding place — every note, every resonance is exposed. But it’s incredibly freeing.” After his multi-award-winning 2022 debut Anomaly, where the sitar interacted with bass, drums, piano, and string sections, Degun returns to the foundation of his musical training. This record is his opportunity to reconnect with the pure, improvisational language of Indian classical music, which remains the core of his artistry.

On Jogkauns, Degun and Bahra perform in a single, continuous flow, captured in meticulous detail by engineer James Turner. Real World Studios’ microphones reveal every subtlety of the sitar’s resonances: the shimmer of sympathetic strings, the attack of the mizrab on metal strings, the drone of the tanpura, and the dynamic interplay between sitar and tabla. Degun’s training in the gayaki ang tradition of Ustad Vilayat Khan — a style that emulates the human voice on the sitar — informs the lyrical phrasing, string bends, and the nuanced dialogue between instrument and percussion.