After a lengthy journey to the Ziro Festival of Music in Arunachal Pradesh, Bengaluru artiste Rudy Mukta (who goes by Rudy as an artiste) obtained on stage together with her band for the primary time on September 27, debuting new songs and new variations of songs. While Ziro does get cool in September, it was sunny when Rudy made her entrance on the bamboo stage carrying a lengthy, hooded coat, which she quickly realised it was too scorching for.
Running via songs together with her band comprising bassist Niya Rose, drummer Rhema George and keyboardist Leeanne Besterwitch, Rudy carried out ‘Morbid Bop,’ ‘Weathering,’ ‘Checkmate,’ ‘Time’ and extra. Among them was ‘Funny,’ the primary tune Rudy ever made and ‘Love & Limerence,’ the most recent she launched by way of Universal Music India’s imprint IndieA on September 9. By the tip, an attendee even obtained on stage to supply her a bouquet, a lot to everybody’s bewilderment.
Per week previous to acting at Ziro, Rudy spoke to The Hindu about a reinvention of her music, her visible aesthetic with the ‘Love & Limerence’ music video and taking part in dwell. Last 12 months, Rudy graduated from Bengaluru’s Mount Carmel College, majoring in economics and sociology. “Suddenly, I have so much time and it’s good. I’m slowly centered and getting into a routine. In the beginning, it was I was, ‘Oh my God, now my life is in my hands and I have to do something with it’,” she says over a name.
It was quickly after she graduated that she and her longtime producer Kalmi — who many know because the beatmaker for Hanumankind’s breakout hit ‘Big Dawgs’ — obtained collectively for classes in Hyderabad and got here up with ‘Love & Limerence,’ an R&B/pop tune that’s emotionally heavy and builds up in sonic depth because it goes. Rudy remembers, “He wrote a piano piece, and I just sang over it, and it came to be. We posted on Instagram right after we made it. After that, we built on it with the production and everything else.”
Bengaluru musician Rudy
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As common collaborators — Kalmi additionally labored on Rudy’s 2021 EP Broke My Slumber , the singer-songwriter says they’ve each arrived at a “mature sound” with ‘Love & Limerence’ and present materials. He additionally known as on Rudy to contribute vocals to Hanumankind’s ‘Cause’ from his latest mixtape Monsoon Season.
The artistic course of between them has typically been about “making new sounds” with out excited about whether or not will probably be materials they must launch, Rudy notes. “It is because we spent so much time making new sounds and not dropping them for a certain amount of time, that I was just excited to put things out at one point.”
The title of her new tune, particularly “limerence” got here from Rudy’s behavior of noting down “cool words or phrases” every time she comes throughout them. She says, “I jot them down in my Notes app, and leave it for later. Then, when I sit down to write, I’ll pick it up and think, ‘I like this, let me build on it. I am going to come up with a concept around it.’ I think a reel mentioned limerence, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is such a nice word’.”
The haunting, seemingly goth-inspired music video directed by Deepika Menon (her directorial debut, Rudy reminds us) with Lendrick Kumar as government producer is a deep dive into the artiste’s psyche as she grapples with love, longing and emotional distance. Rudy says, “This was my first major music video with a full-fledged set and a crew. I learned a lot by being on set and was inspired after seeing everyone be so good at what they do there. They made the whole process easy and comfortable.”
After Ziro Festival of Music, Rudy is heading to Lollapalooza India in Mumbai on January 25, 2026. Previously solely performing solo, she says there’s now extra freedom with having a band, extra so an all-girl band.
“We get to experiment with ideas that aren’t in the studio version of the song. I am able to add to certain pockets and make it more high energy, for instance, changing the groove somewhere in the middle. It is super fun,” she says.
In the run as much as the subsequent pageant efficiency, Rudy says there might or is probably not extra new songs. “Let’s see. Ideally, I would like to drop some, but if not, there still is music being made, and there still is music waiting to come out.”
