Lhasa de Sela

Official bio first and then 2004's US bio following : Lhasa's- Bio Some might have seen Lhasaʼs first album, “La Llorona”, as acuriosity, an exotic accident. The singer and songwriter appeared from nowhere in 1997 with an album that defied definition, capturing a Latin world of her own imagination born of an itinerant childhood spent between Mexico and the US. The music was both familiar and truly unique, a mix of ranchera music, Eastern European gypsy music, country, and popular songwriting, with intensely personal lyrics in Spanish, and a passionate vocal delivery. The album was written and produced in Montréal, and in many ways could not have been made anywhere else. These are songs inspired by a warm country but written in a cold one, with a Brontë-like romanticism, a wry and literate sense of humor, and moments of startling emotional rawness. When they heard it, people from North America and Europe sighed and said “Ah, Mexico...”, and Mexicans said, “What strange music! Where is she from?” The album made its way through Canada, France, then through half of the world, winning many prizes and selling more than half a million copies (a surprising accomplishment for a non-commercial, non-traditional Spanish-language album). “La Llorona” was so thoroughly embraced by its fans that it has become a modern classic of sorts, always under the radar, always being discovered by new admirers, always as surprising and familiar as it was when it first appeared 12 years ago. But Lhasa was just getting started. When “The Living Road”, Lhasaʼs second album was released in 2003 (almost seven years after her first), it immediately became clear that she had evaded the lure of self-imitation and had followed her muse instead. Her refusal to be boxed in -to succumb to the label of exoticism- was obvious in the choice of writing and singing in three languages, as well as in the tales that wound their way through this truly astonishing album. She was not only at home in Spanish, English and French, but was raw, personal and uncompromising in each. Moving from one idiom to another, from a sweet and feminine ranchera to a clacking gospel tune, from a spiraling, percussion- driven blues song to a gentle lullaby; her charisma and conviction holding it all together as if by magic. “The Living Road” brought Lhasa to an even wider public and to greater acclaim. Audiences everywhere adopted her as their own. Her impassioned and hypnotic performances took her to hundreds of cities, from Mexico City to Istanbul. Songs from both of her albums were used in film and television, including The Sopranos, Madonnaʼs documentary I Am Because We Are, the science fiction film Cold Souls and John Saylesʼ Casa de los Babys. Collaborations with other artists included work with Tindersticks, Patrick Watson, Arthur H. and many others. In 2005 the BBCʼs World Music Awards named Lhasa “Best Artist of the Americas”. Now, six years after the release of "The Living Road", she is back with an album simply called "Lhasa". A first listen reveals how apt the title is. Written and produced by Lhasa herself, recorded mostly live and entirely to tape, this third album feels like the work of a singer, songwriter, arranger, and producer coming into her own. And it couldn't have been recorded any other way - the attentiveness of the musicians to each other and to the singer is apparent in the subtle changes of intensity and tempo that are impossible in the world of click-tracks and composite takes. Here is music making and music recording, the old fashioned way: for real! This album is a living, breathing specimen of that rare species of music, which unfolds itself without selling itself, which reaches out and pulls the listener in, effortlessly. Lhasa has accomplished something extraordinary here, and made it look easy. The songs are all in English, the instrumentation is simple yet unusual - harp, guitar, pedal steel, bass, drums, piano. The melodies are familiar and irresistible, yet totally original. The lyrics are written in a strikingly transparent and image-laden English. The style draws from Country, Gospel, Blues and Folk, and manages to feel ancient without a hint of nostalgia, and modern without a drop of technological wizardry. The musicianship is daringly restrained and textured, the singing unforced, open, luminous. Far from all of the sound and fury of the modern music business, Lhasa has been quietly going about becoming one of the most fascinating songwriters of her generation. 2004 US bio Her story begins in Big Indian, a tiny village perched among the Catskill mountains, although she didn't stay there long. Lhasa's (full name Lhasa de Sela) idealistic and unconventional parents rejected routine and stability, preferring to follow life wherever it might lead them. For seven years, the family would crisscross the United States and Mexico in a converted school bus, Lhasa’s first chapter in a long experience of the road. Her father was a writer and teacher who would work in construction or picking fruit, when he had to; her mother was a photographer. Travelling with them and her three sisters, it was her early contacts with books, fairy tales, radio drama and passing landscapes that shaped her imagination. Even at the time, she knew how lucky she was to be spending her childhood as she was, although the freedom entailed uncertainty, as well. The soundtrack to those years was a medley of the American and Mexican classics loved by her father, and the Latin, Arab, Eastern European and Asian music her mother would listen to. San Francisco, mid '80s. At 13, Lhasa took to the stage of a Greek café to sing Billie Holliday ballads and Mexican tunes a cappella. There, she gradually discovered the power of her voice to convey thoughts and emotions she was only beginning to experience herself. Six years later, the road led north, to Montreal. It was there that she met guitarist and producer Yves Desrosiers. For close to five years, they performed together in downtown bars, a collaboration that evolved into original material that eventually took form in La Llorona, an album that centered on the persona of a tearful siren of Aztec mythology who would bewitch men with her heart-rending melodies. Infused with a certain nouvelle nostalgie, the album exuded the fragrances of Mexico and the colors of the Romany, full of sensuality and striking instrumentation. Released in February 1997, the Spanish-language album was immediately recognized for its sparkling originality. Hundreds of thousands worldwide were transported by the even, throaty voice that delivered such mysterious poetry above the rich arrangements, heady like incense. The first impact was in Quebec, where Lhasa began to fill halls and ultimately win the "Félix" for "Artiste québécois - musique de monde" in 1997. Then followed the rest of Canada, where she went platinum, selling 110,000 albums and winning a Juno for Best Global Artist, in 1998. Then came the U.S. and Europe, especially France, where La Llorona went “triple disc d’or,” with 300,000 flying off the shelves. Lhasa and her band toured relentlessly for several years, throughout Europe and North America, where her concerts were as acclaimed as the album had been. The demand for live appearances steadily increased. On the eve of the 21st Century, Lhasa decided to take a break from touring and consider what might be next. Realizing that she needed to distance herself from her life as a singer, she decided to travel to France to fulfill her childhood dream of performing with her three sisters, all circus performers. They met up in Bourgogne and created a show together, which premiered in the summer of 1999. The contrast between the life of a touring musician who sees the world fly by with never the time to savor the places and people along the way and the circus life, travelling in the company of family and friends, sharing trailers and assembling and dismantling the big top and bleachers, provided a welcome opportunity for the singer to replenish her inner resources. When the circus tour had ended, Lhasa arrived at a new chapter in her life: Marseille, the ancient port city, where half the titles for her new album would be born. In 2002, now back in Montreal where her career had begun, she re-united with François Lalonde, drummer, percussionist and sound engineer on La Llorona, and Jean Massicotte, pianist who had also contributed to the mixing of her first release. They were to co-produce her second album, The Living Road, already much anticipated on both sides of the Atlantic. Where La Llorona revolves around a mythical siren, The Living Road centers on the metaphor of life as a road. A gathering of original titles sung in Spanish, English and French, the album bridges physical distances as it links the musical traditions of the present and the past. Lhasa’s voice and lyrics cross borders freely. The melodies themselves are timeless and the rhythms textured. And in every song can be found Lhasa’s clear conviction that life is a living road, that nothing repeats itself, and that nothing is ordinary. "That’s what inspires each of the songs on the album," says Lhasa. "The mysterious force that doesn't let us box ourselves in, that compels us to keep changing. The road is alive, we can't freeze or stop it. And we know can't." Lhasa Out Now: http://tinyurl.com/nfjc3h