Underscore Records is driven by the belief that a major part of music making in India remains unheard, untapped, unrecorded and unpublished. Several streams of music that coexist in the musically vibrant Indian society are not sufficiently represented in prevailing forms of dissemination, and many musicians continue to work silently despite the severe lack of proper and sustained patronage and recognition. Underscore Records believes that there is an urgent need for creating space for all forms of music, and for musicians to empower themselves in order to find a voice of sanity in an irksome market situation.

In a bid to achieve its goals, Underscore Records performs the roles of producer, manufacturer and/or distributor. It strives to bring to its listeners quality music with excellent production values that you may not easily find on the shelves of a music store. In most cases musicians featured on the Underscore label retain their copyright over their music, thus empowering themselves as an artistic community.

Extending its role further, Underscore also makes available other music related material in the nature of books, papers, essays, articles, and photographs.  

We aim at providing music from a variety of genres such as art/classical, folk and cross-cultural collaborative music, among others.

You will find audio and video recordings of both vocal and instrumental music, as well as lecture demonstrations and other educational material on music. Some of these recordings are archival or are made on location, all of which adds to the exclusivity of the music. Many of these would be considered prized possessions by collectors and music connoisseurs.

Books on music are also available on the site along with individual papers and essays. Some of these will be available in pdf format on CDs, but we also make them available in print.

Some Indian photographers have exquisite collections of their photographs of Indian performers and musicians. The site will make them available for your viewing pleasure as well as for sale.

Underscore Records also believes in updating musicians, researches, students and music lovers, with information related to many areas of music making in India . This information can be accessed in the Resources section of the site.