Nihar - Chrysalis (2018)

Longtime Bay Area DJ, producer, community and event organizer, Nihar Bhatt (@niharb) steps up for JKTN047 with an 8-track album titled Chrysalis. The sound palette across the album is rooted in industrial, club, and ambient techno, with a confident nod to experimentation that places the music squarely within the ethos and politics of the projects and artists he is so deeply involved with in the Bay. Chrysalis is the sound of an emerging artist thoughtfully taking the pulse of a rapidly-changed city yet also carving out a distinct niche within a genre that can be flooded with icy, impersonal electronics. The music is dark, but it's also emotional.

If you're from the Bay (and beyond), you know how entrenched Nihar is in the local scene, through projects like Surface Tension, Left Hand Path and Intersection (to name a few) and we're proud to partner with him for the next phase of his journey and artistic process. This is an album for DJs, but also a slowly-unfurling, rewarding home listen.