It’s been a long time since Sheila Chandra graced us with new music. Her last proper album was This Sentence Is True (The Previous Sentence Is False) in 2001. Since then Chandra has been retiring in southwest England, singing only in an amateur choir, still nursing her voice after years of nagging throat problems.
But recently she’s been peaking out with scattered performances and now, a full-on tour in the UK, Asia and America. As I understand it, Sheila will be singing solo against drones, performing music from her Realworld Trilogy: Weaving My Ancestor’s Voices, The Zen Kiss and ABoneCroneDrone
The US leg begins in mid-September with stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. The tour schedule is on her website.
Sheila Chandra was one of the defining voices of the 1990s, using her heaven-sent pipes to draw upon music traditions from across the world, making links between Celtic and Indian music and ancient ritual and modern technology. Kimberly Haas and I heard her on our first trip to London in 1982, trying to identify an exuberant slice of Indian techno-pop called Ever So Lonely that we kept hearing on the BBC and in stores. I still have the original EP of that release by Monsoon.
We’ve been graced with Sheila’s appearance on Echoes many times, including live performances at a WOMAD festival in Seattle and once in the Echoes Living Room itself. But one of our most striking memories from Echoes is sitting three feet in front of Sheila while she sang for us in her living room. (A track from that performance is on the rare and out-of-print CD, The Echoes Living Room Concerts Volume 2.)
The world has been too long without the voice of Sheila Chandra.
Comment posted by
at 9/11/2007 4:01:49 AM
Beautiful voice.. Yes the world awaits her next album!!