Amarrass Making Music Sustainable
Based in New Delhi, India, Amarrass Records is a multi-faceted independent record label, artist management company, and event production enterprise. Since 2009, we've been dedicated to a mission of making music sustainable by preserving and reviving traditional folk music and nurturing the creative spirit of both artists and folk instrument makers. Guided by the principles of fair trade, we connect diverse musical cultures with a global audience through high-quality album releases, international tours, and curated events. We are also at the forefront of vinyl revival in India, operating a facility that produces hand-cut records to present our diverse catalog in high fidelity.
Label's first official record release.
Amarrass Records Taking Folk
Music to Global Acclaim
The Amarrass Story
We operate on the principles of fair trade, working directly with folk musicians and instrument makers to ensure ancient traditions thrive in the modern global economy.
Global Policy Recognition
Our sustainable arts model is featured in the UNESCO Creative Economies Report as a benchmark for cultural preservation.
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Masterful
Archiving
We have produced over 300 music videos and 15 high-fidelity albums, documenting living legends for the public domain and future generations.
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Analog
Pioneers
Analog Pioneers Amarrass operates India’s first boutique hand-cut vinyl workshop, reviving the warmth of analog sound for folk field recordings.
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Visual
Legacy
The Aga Khan Museum (Toronto) produced the three-part docuseries Searching for the Blues, chronicling our journey through the Thar Desert to document the roots of the Indian Blues.
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Global Media Authority
Our work is consistently featured by The New York Times, NPR, BBC, The WIRE, Rolling Stone India, The Independent, fROOTS, and Downbeat.
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Revival
The revival of the Kamaicha with Shankara Suthar, the last known Kamaicha maker in India, is a cornerstone of our work. It was when recording at home Sakar Khan when he mentioned that there is just 1 Kamaicha maker, as the rest do the touristy jobs; later this was confirmed by the late John Singh of Jaipur Virasat Foundation.
Forged in a traditional mud-pit kiln with goat-skin bellows, every morchang by Mohan Lal Lohar is a testament to centuries of Morchang craft.
Archival
Armed with a borrowed analogue recorder, ten tapes and two microphones, Ashutosh Sharma drove deep into the deserts of Rajasthan, going village to village recording musicians who had never been documented before. What came out of those trips changed everything. Single-take, analogue recordings made inside the homes of the artists themselves. Raw, unfiltered and deeply human. Their first two field recording albums, Mitha Bol and Banko Ghodo, both received five stars from Songlines UK. One of those trips led to the discovery of Manga Khan, whose voice became the foundation of the Barmer Boys.
Today the Amarrass catalogue holds over 14 albums and has taken Rajasthani folk music to stages across 25 countries. These are not studio productions. They are documents of a living tradition, captured honestly, at the source.
Padma Shri Sakar Khan with sons Ghewar and Darra perform “The Train,” marking Jaisalmer’s rail arrival.
Barmer Boys perform “Pir Jilani,” honoring Sufi saint Abdul Qadir Gilani with Mangey Khan on vocals, rooted in tradition.
Jalal Khan and family reinterpret Bulleh Shah’s Sufi poetry, keeping tradition alive.
Sakar Khan and Firoze Khan perform “Minaro,” showcasing traditional kamaicha and dholak.
Bagga Khan and Meisa Ram perform a soulful Meera bhajan from the Thar desert.
Hakam Khan and Roshan Khan perform “Antariyo,” a traditional Manganiyar song from Rajasthan.
Amarrass Society of Performing Arts
The revival of the Kamaicha with Shankara Suthar, the last known Kamaicha maker in India, is a cornerstone of our work. It was when recording at home Sakar Khan when he mentioned that there is just 1 Kamaicha maker, as the rest do the touristy jobs; later this was confirmed by the late John Singh of Jaipur Virasat Foundation.