Joel Veena – Reminder feat. Jasdeep Singh, the Heart of Cardinal

There are tracks that feel like afterthoughts on an album. And then there are tracks that burn a hole straight through the middle of it. For Joel Veena’s new record Cardinal, the flame belongs to Reminder – a collaboration with UK-based percussionist Jasdeep Singh that’s as much about history as it is about sound.

I’ve followed Joel for a while. He’s a Vermont musician with one foot in the forests of New England and the other sunk deep into the classical traditions of India. His weapon of choice? A 20-string Hindustani slide guitar that looks like something built in another century and sounds like it was tuned for eternity. Twelve albums in, you’d think he’d have earned the right to coast – instead, he’s making firsts.

Reminder and the Jori: A First Meeting

Here’s the thing about Reminder: it’s the first time anyone has recorded a track with Hindustani slide guitar and the jori together. And that matters.

The jori it’s a rare, thunder-toned relative of the tabla, historically tied to Sikh devotional music and the ancient dhrupad tradition. Jasdeep Singh carries it with equal parts rhythm and research, a UK-based artist who has dug deep into the instrument’s history and brought it forward into the present. On Reminder, his rolling patterns meet Joel’s slide guitar in a conversation that feels less like a recording session, and more like two traditions recognizing each other after centuries apart.

What strikes me is how unforced it sounds. This is not that kind of fusion for the sake of crossover playlists. It’s respect, it’s curiosity, it’s two musicians saying: let’s see where this road goes. And as a listener, you’re right there walking beside them, caught between the ringing strings and the grounded thump of hand-beaten wood and skin.

The Wider Canvas of Cardinal

Reminder is the centrepiece, but the album around it – Cardinal – is a world worth exploring. Recorded at Root Cellar Sound in Vermont with sessions spilling into Guilford Sound and across the ocean at Dhrupad Dhamar studio in the UK, it’s both local and international, stitched together by Joel’s own hands.

The record carries eight tracks, each pushing in its own direction. Raag Bageshree roots itself in traditional Hindustani structure, stretching the strings until they sing like incense smoke curling toward the ceiling. Just Give Thanks lands closer to sung poetry, stripped to gratitude and pulse. And then there’s Resistance, where Joel threads electronic beats through the slide guitar’s resonance. Proof that tradition doesn’t have to sit politely in the corner, while modernity throws a party.

If Reminder is a landmark, Cardinal is the map around it, a place where the old and the new thrive off each other.

Joel’s Offering

Joel has said, “My music is an offering and a process at the same time.” I believe him. You can hear it. Every plucked note, every trembling sustain, carries that double meaning – a gift outward, and a practice inward. That’s what makes Cardinal hit differently. Not designed to sell you an image. It’s Joel sitting with the vast weight of human tradition and saying: here’s how I can carry a piece of it, here’s how I can share it.

The cover art deserves its own stage. Painted by Anca Ioana Boștină, it captures the album’s spirit without a single note being played. A cardinal perched on an ornate guitar headstock, drenched in watercolour shades. I think this is the same balance of tradition and flight that runs through the music. And I have to say, I loved that.

I listen and I’m reminded that music doesn’t always have to be about spectacle. Sometimes it’s about resonance, about two instruments meeting for the first time and finding they speak the same language. That’s what Reminder does, and that’s why it lingers.

Follow Joel Veena on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, let Cardinal play loud on Spotify, and bring it home through Bandcamp.