Rama Gu is a music project by New York-based songwriter Anders Kapur. Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Kapur learned to play guitar and bass at an early age. Several projects have emerged since his move to New York City : solo efforts include Bedlam-Roxbury under Anders RGK, recorded at Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada while he was on a residency, and Optimist EP under Rama Gu, recorded at Hotel2Tango in Montreal. Optimist EP contains songs about dreams, love, and despair, and Kapur notes that this project felt like “a door opening up to a new world in my songwriting. Once I finished Optimist and took on the Rama Gu moniker, I felt free to express myself further, more vulnerably.”

Critics have deemed Rama Gu’s music “sweatercore”: cozy, fuzzy, steeped in childhood nostalgia, nestled by the fireside. Kapur tells personal stories from his past with hypnotic plucked guitar and his urgent, direct baritone voice, leading the listener deep into his internal world. His latest album, with a working title The Garden, is set for release in early 2021. It tells the story of a boy in his late 20’s, grappling with familial history, the state of the world, and fears of failure and dreams of glory. Images from the album are charged with emotional intensity: grandparents’ photographs from their youth, a dusty box of tapes, the quietude of 6th Avenue the morning after Halloween. Kapur hopes this album will help listeners eventually “dig into their past, to mine for images and see what surprises they might find about their personal histories.” For more information on Rama Gu, check out his releases on Spotify and follow him on Instagram.