If you want to speak to Kabir Parekh, you have to catch him in between lectures. Last year, the 20-year-old musician—who currently releases tracks under the moniker The Sound Chalk Makes—moved from Mumbai to London to study Music Production at University of the Arts London.
In 2025 alone, Parekh had dropped 18 singles (as well as three under his other project, Monoranger), each one featuring a skittish swerve, starting in one place and ending up somewhere completely different. They sampled everything from Miley Cyrus (“4wheelpharmacy”) to Madonna—mixed with cuts from the Climax soundtrack (“ladies with an attitude”). He owes this to his own overstimulation, “because there’s 10 things that suddenly come out of me at the same time.” This had all unfolded semi-quietly, fitting in neatly with his college life, until ‘Manmade Manmaid.” In December, he posted a self-made teaser for the track, shot under a strip light-glow unique to parking lots and apartment building hallways. The tastemakers came calling.
Today, he’s repped by the cool one-two-punch of Anemoia Records (The Hellp) and welcome.jpeg, the hot IG curatorial platform and- “digital museum.” The joint signing happened when he was home in Mumbai for winter break, surrounded by his friends. Now comes some structure: his first EP, titled re:, dropped last week.
Parekh is back in London, drinking an iced black coffee in a duffel coat Paddington would be jealous of. He’s wearing his girlfriend’s diamante-studded gloves embroidered with the phrase: “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” It’s a cheeky side for someone who seems like a real pragmatist. He’s got a good, level-headed answer for pretty much everything…including his name, as weird and evocative as it may seem.
Its origin hasn’t been embellished for the sake of a good story: “I was 14 and had just got my DistroKid subscription. I wanted to go under this other name, Hiraeth—the Welsh word for a nostalgia that never happened—but it was taken. The Sound Chalk Makes just sounded cool.” He’s thought about changing it but nothing’s ever stuck.
Parekh was born in San Francisco before moving to Mumbai with his parents at the age of 5. Until two years ago, that was home for him. Growing up, he was part of a catholic choir. His first flirt with contemporary material started with a cover band at the age of 14. “It wasn’t great,” he says, but it acted as a gateway into making music with his hands as well as his voice—first with instruments, then with his laptop on Garage Band. He started playing around, discovering the ways in which electronic music spawned subgenres, many of which he’s waded into since (a folktronica project with his friends is forthcoming.) But that creative richness means it’s equally hard to define the genre of his work. For the sake of ease, streaming platforms have labeled it ‘alternative’.
“The mainstream in India doesn’t make sense to me, because it’s a billion people, and even if they don’t have electricity, they have internet connections,” he says. “A lot of the stuff that gets consumed is pushed down by these big corporations who have vested interest with Bollywood. But because of that, there is an underground music scene.”
The summer after he left high school, Parekh and four friends started a pop-up club night that filled out hair salons and studios, called Mumbaiandarground. The way he frames it: “If you enjoy this music and you only listen to it in your headphones, come to the club and listen to it there too,” he says. “The first one had no strategy, we just made really cool graphics to go along with it, and told people: this is where the party is. There was no AC. Everyone was sweating their ass off.” Since then, other party promoters in Mumbai have tried to ride their wave. Parekh isn’t worried: “I know we’re the best.”
Parekh lands in London at a crucial time in its musical history: “It’s kind of become the mecca of underground music for the world,” he says, “That’s a crazy transition to witness, because London wasn’t even my fifth option for university.” He knows it’s funny that he’s still studying something that is already his literal profession, but insists the structure and education is good for him. He’s also enjoying being able to observe how London does things, and take it back with him to Mumbai for parties there. What’s he listening to right now? Fakemink collaborators The Twins, as well as Mechatok, and Amil Raja (“his melodic sensibility is off the charts”).
Re: is the first time Parekh feels like he’s been able to fully focus. “There’s a lot of growing up that happens between 14 and 20, and I was never able to feel the same way for more than a month,” he says. After dropping all those songs at the start of last year, “I took a break, went home for summer, then came back and started working. I didn’t know what they were going to be, but the level of emotional stability I developed over the last six months enabled me to make something cohesive.” The tracks, stripped of the pop samples that seemed to stretch themselves across his earlier work, but equally unpredictable, feel crunchy, crazy, and exciting. Like that weird stomach rush you get when a plane takes off.
The songs chronicle his life during those six months but not in a straightforward sense. “I despise narration, and like metaphors,” Parekh says. “I prefer drawing lines in a tangled, web-like way. When the music leaves me, it’s not mine anymore, and when it’s somebody else’s, they can relate it to their life. There’s been many times where I’ve heard a song that I’m a fan of, and I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s literally talking about my life’. Even if one line doesn’t fit, you find a way to make it fit. I prefer that.”
FOUR ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE SOUND CHALK MAKES
What smell reminds you of home?
Dust. Once we land in Mumbai, the air quality is terrible. Pollution is terrible. It’s comforting as well, but there’s a distinct smell of cloudiness in the air.
If you had a keyboard in front of you, what keys would you be pressing?
The C and G: A C5. I love the perfect fifth. It’s hard for me to see a through line through the things I do, but one is that interval. It’s just the most beautiful thing. It can make you feel sad, or a little happy, or it can make you dance.
What do you spend too much time doing?
Watching the NBA highlights.
What are your thoughts on energy drinks?
I love them. There’s this one in India called Sting. It’s the most disgustingly bright red color, you can see it when you buy it. It looks like it should not be in anybody, but it really gets you going.
