Lucknow: For most musicians, the journey begins with mastering an instrument. For guitarist, producer and DJ Zoha — whose bureaucrat mother hails from Lucknow — it began with the guitar but refused to stay there.Today, Zoha occupies a distinctive space in India’s independent music landscape, moving fluidly between guitar-driven composition, electronic production and DJ culture. Her work draws equally from rock, classical fingerstyle, flamenco, house and experimental electronica, creating a sound that is difficult to classify but instantly recognisable.The musician’s roots run deep. Trained at the Delhi School of Music, Zoha spent her formative years immersed in guitar traditions, studying techniques and styles that ranged from rock and classical fingerstyle to flamenco. Yet even as she developed as an instrumentalist, she found herself increasingly drawn to the possibilities offered by electronic music.Unlike many producers who enter the field through software and machines, Zoha arrived from the opposite direction. Her understanding of melody and composition was shaped by years of playing guitar, while production became a self-taught pursuit fuelled by curiosity and experimentation.“Coming from a guitar background trained through rock, classical fingerstyle and flamenco, and a self-taught production practice shaped by artists like Krewella and Monolink, my music moves through house, leftfield and experimental electronic without settling into just one of them,” she says. “That’s exactly the sound I’ve been working toward.”That refusal to be boxed into a single genre has become central to her artistic identity. Whether performing live or behind the DJ console, Zoha gravitates towards atmosphere and storytelling rather than formula. Her sets frequently traverse house, melodic techno, downtempo, breakbeat and ambient music, reflecting an artist more interested in emotional journeys than genre boundaries.Her evolution as a producer has been equally organic. What began as experimentation gradually transformed into a complete creative practice in which she writes, performs and produces her own music.The latest example of that journey is Floating Seaweed, an instrumental single released in August. While the track itself emerged from a freediving experience off Goa’s Grand Island, it also represents a milestone in Zoha’s growth as a self-sufficient artist.“Floating Seaweed is entirely self-produced,” she says. “The guitar, drums and synths were all written and played by me. It started as a rough sketch on GarageBand on my phone before being built out properly in Logic Pro.”The anecdote captures the way Zoha works: ideas can arrive anywhere, whether during a dive in the Arabian Sea or through a fleeting melody recorded on a smartphone. What matters is the ability to transform those moments into immersive sonic experiences.Her music is often instrumental, but that is a conscious choice rather than an absence. Instead of relying on lyrics, she prefers to communicate through texture, movement and mood.“I built the whole track as an instrumental response to that experience, something meant to be felt rather than explained,” she says.That philosophy extends beyond a single release. Across her body of work, Zoha appears less interested in making music that demands attention than in creating spaces where listeners can slow down and engage with their own thoughts.
