Before Jay Panelia reclaimed his name, he was Jay Pei — a young boy from Rajkot with shelves of cassettes and vinyl, a love for music, and an obsession with DJing. “Back in school, as a teenager who wanted to do music, everyone called me Jay Pei. I just kept the name,” he says. “As I learned things, I started figuring out music and performance, but I had never really thought about what my artistry is or who I am as a person.”
Recently performing at Delhi’s OddBird Theatre, the Gujarat-born artist is swiftly etching his name into the city’s electronic music scene with his signature blend of emotive beats and introspective soundscapes. At the show, he played tracks from his debut album Nothing and All At Once, while teasing unreleased material from his upcoming record, offering listeners a glimpse of what’s next.
“Anger and disappointment with the self are strong emotions in this new body of work,” he says. “Even when everything seems to be going fine, there’s often a lingering feeling that something’s off.” His music has long leaned into that edge: “Melancholy, sadness, rage… there’s occasionally a thread of hope, but I’m more drawn to these heavier emotions than euphoria. Somehow, they feel more honest to me.”
Released in late 2024, Nothing and All At Once reflects Panelia’s desire to make “electronic music feel more than just electronic music.” A ten-track journey through grief, rage, and hope, the album swells with emotional highs like ‘As I Walk Towards You’ and brooding lows like ‘The Dawn After’. “They’re still electronic sounds,” he explains, “but the tracks feel like there’s human movement in them. There’s a lot of expression, a lot of melancholy, a lot of anger. And a lot of hope too.”
Music, for him, is a form of catharsis. “A lot of the things I’d never say out loud, I say through music,” he says. “It’s always been that way. Whether it was before, as a different project, or now, music has always been a way to let it all out.”
The name change—from Jay Pei to Panelia—mirrors that shift. He’s moved away from the world of DJing and club-heavy sets toward something more meaningful. “After 13 years of DJing, I realised I didn’t want to keep doing the same thing. I felt stagnated, unidirectional. I wasn’t experimenting, and it didn’t feel like the truest form of my expression anymore.”
With the name change, Panelia says he has left behind old versions of himself. “I’m no longer making just the music that works in the club. I'm making music now that also tells some sort of emotional story.” He describes his newer sound as rooted in life experiences and lived moments, something more personal. Panelia still enjoys DJing, but he says “it’s just a chapter of my life I value.”
He moved to Delhi in 2013, and after spending over a decade in the city, it now feels like home. “But when I left Rajkot, I was 20, and until then, my understanding of music and gigs was very limited, just through the internet.” He says that initial exposure to live music in Delhi felt magical, and that sense of wonder continues to shape his performances. For him, every show is an attempt to recreate that feeling for someone in the audience who might be experiencing it for the first time.
After years in the city and evolving through his sound, Panelia is now intentional about where he's headed next. He’s focused on his next album, and everything else can wait. “I’ve become more selective,” he says. “Quality always stands out. Quantity brings in money, sure—but it doesn’t always bring happiness or value. I’m focused on the value now.”