Sheila Chandra
One of the most unusual and successful singers of the '80s and '90s that has attempted to fuse the music of non-Western cultures with Western pop, Sheila Chandra began recording as a teenager in Monsoon. Of Indian ancestry but born and raised in Britain, Chandra took lead vocals in the band, which pursued a sort of new wave-tinged raga rock along the lines of George Harrison's explorations on Beatles tracks like "Love You To." The combination yielded an album and an unexpected British hit single, "Ever So Lonely," in the early '80s. Chandra, however, felt limited by the label's pressures for more commercial product, and signed to a small indie label, Indipop, which she felt would offer more freedom for her explorations as a solo artist.
In the mid-'80s, Chandra was astonishingly prolific, releasing five solo albums over a period of about two or three years, which drifted away from the Asian dance-pop of Monsoon into a more personal sort of world fusion. Chandra also began to write much of her own material, usually in collaboration with producer and husband Steve Coe; Coe had also helped produce, write, and perform the music in Monsoon with Martin Smith, who assisted on Chandra's early solo records. Indian instruments were still usually employed, and electronic rhythm tracks still sometimes used to guarantee some measure of danceability and pop/rock appeal. But with increasing frequency, Chandra was pushing herself beyond the parameters of pop/rock with wordless pieces of both melismatic singing and percussive mouth noises, ambitious song cycles, interwoven overdubbed vocal tracks, and a 27-minute track based around a raga. (Her mid-'80s Indipop albums have been reissued in the U.S. by Caroline.)
Chandra truly matured as an artist, however, with her '90s albums for Peter Gabriel's Real World label (distributed in the U.S., again, by Caroline). As proof that adulthood doesn't have to mean tamer and more mainstream product, these found Chandra achieving a true world fusion that drew from Indian ragas, elements of British folk, Middle Eastern chants, sophisticated studio overdubs, and more vocal percussion compositions, the last of which bordered on the downright experimental.
Chandra and Coe were now almost solely responsible for the music (Martin Smith no longer being an active participant), constructing drone-like instrumental textures to suitably complement Chandra's oft-wordless singing. Pop and rock were hardly factors anymore; Chandra was primarily interested in extending the limits of vocal expression, whether applied to Indian, Spanish, or Islamic forms, or the kind of material that could find a suitable home in the repertoire of June Tabor or Laurie Anderson. These recent works have firmly established Chandra as one of the principal boundary jumpers of contemporary music, but she's not a dilettante, and she imbues her music with a haunting, spiritual grace. In 2010, Chandra was diagnosed with 'Burnt Mouth Syndrome', a painful neurological disorder that ended not only her recording career but her ability to speak as well.
© Richie Unterberger /TiVo
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Discografia
21 álbum(ns) • Ordenado por Mais vendidos
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ABoneCroneDrone
World - Lançado por Real World Records em 01/01/1996
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Weaving My Ancestors' Voices (Real World Gold)
World - Lançado por Real World Records em 01/01/1992
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The Zen Kiss
World - Lançado por Real World Records em 28/04/1994
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Out On My Own
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 29/05/2007
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The Struggle
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 18/09/2006
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EEP1 & EEP2
Sheila Chandra, The Ganges Orchestra
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 01/10/1999
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Moonsung: A Real World Retrospective (Real World Gold)
World - Lançado por Real World Records em 01/05/2015
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Roots and Wings
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 25/04/2000
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Quiet
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 06/09/2006
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Archive
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 21/07/2013
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Nada Brahma
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 10/09/2012
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This Sentence Is True (The Previous Sentence Is False)
Sheila Chandra, The Ganges Orchestra
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 14/11/2006
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Pure Drones, Vol. I
Sheila Chandra, The Ganges Orchestra
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 04/02/2013
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The Indipop Retrospective
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 10/09/2012
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The Power of Prayer (Off the desk version)
World - Lançado por Real World Records em 04/08/2023
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Pure Drones, Vol. II
Sheila Chandra, The Ganges Orchestra
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 04/02/2013
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Beautifully Weird (Extended Mix)
Richie Blacker, Sheila Chandra
House - Lançado por Limbo Records em 11/12/2020
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Ever So Lonely/Eyes/Ocean (Stephen Hague Remix)
World - Lançado por Real World Records em 28/06/2023
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Pure Drones, Vol. III
Sheila Chandra, The Ganges Orchestra
World - Lançado por Indipop Records em 04/02/2013
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