LHASA DE SELA
Posted 08-01-2010 at 16:05 by ulysses
Quote:
The singer Lhasa de Sela passed away in her Montreal home on the night of January 1st 2010, just before midnight.
De cara a la pared
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOLg_XY2cWA&NR=1
All that could be found in Russian:
singer Lhasa de Sela (Lhasa de Sela)
Quote:
Lhasa de Sela was born in 1972 in the small village of Big Indien in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York (USA). Her father, Alejandro de Sela ethnic Mexicans, a teacher of Spanish and Mexican literature era onkisty and writer who has lived half his life in general. Mother Alexandra Karam merikanka Lebanese descent, a former actress and current fotografinya contrast, half of his life spent in Mexico. (History does not, how can they still managed to meet. Perhaps, on the border between the two countries, when they both decided that half of life has passed, and it's time to return ...).
In addition to the three stepsisters and three half-brothers from the singer has three sisters (Skye, Aiying and Miriem), which act in European circuses as a gymnast on a trapeze acrobat and kanatohodki. For seven years, numerous family of the future singer lived in a converted school bus, shuttling between the U.S. and Mexico. The bus was not the TV, one of the most important tool in creating an American identity, and Lhasa devoted all his spare time reading. In addition, she listened to their favorite music of his parents: his father - a fan of American and Mexican "oldiz" 1940 - 1950-ies (by the way, he co-authored lyrics Floricanto), and his mother - an ethnic (Arab, Latin, gypsy, Japanese and so on etc.) music. Among his teachers Lhasa calls Billie Holliday, Chavela Vargas, Tom Waits, Cuco Sanchez, Maria Callas, Victor Haru, Jacques Brel, and Bjork. Critics have compared her work with the songs Sesario Evora and even Vladimir Vysotsky (in the latter case, presumably, referring to the degree of energy impact on the listener, not the timbre of voice). At the age of thirteen years (her family was living in San Francisco) Lhasa began singing at a local Greek cafe. According to her, she performed unaccompanied, because she was not familiar musicians and just because I could not sing ... In 1991, when Lhasa was visiting his sisters, enrolled in one of the circus school in Montreal, she met jazz guitarist Yves Desrosiers. That's when they got the idea to write the disk, based on the material of Mexican folk songs, called "La Llorona" on behalf of one of the characters in the Aztec mythology. The material for this disc for a long time tested in Montreal clubs, and only the 1996 team, joined by bassist Mario Lehár, began to record. After the disk group Lhasa performed at many festivals, not only in Canada but also in Europe. Especially the warmth of her taken in France. A year after the release of "La Llorona" has sold 50 thousand copies, gaining thereby the honorary title of "golden disk". However, since about Lhasa is not known. Maybe she broke relations with Yves Desrosiers, a union with which it was not only creative, or completely switched to painting ... In any case, it was a long silence testifies to the sincerity of her album created in which it invested before the end of the whole experience to the experience, too intimate, to be operated continuously. This CD primarily affects the integrity sound. Enveloping sound that seems to not be created only a few who participated in the recording of instruments and voices, it merged some sources that can not be recorded even in the most advanced studio: slanting stream of light, projecting window on the stone floor, dust particles, silently floating in this light, half-closed eyes singing Lhasa ... An even greater delight is the fact that the songs were recorded in the home: the instruments - in the kitchen of a Montreal friend, and the vocals of Lhasa on her kitchen, which turned out to be an ideal for recording of her voice, acoustic features. It used several tools, personally constructed Yves Desrosiers, for example, melting, like a mirage in the Mexican desert, slide bass, lonely yearning at the end of the last track disc. And, of course, the very voice of Lhasa. Saturated loneliness, misunderstood and female helplessness. Each time, listening to the album, I think that I want to hide the owner of this deep voice, like a bird, between the warm hands and protect against this callous cruel world. Without such opportunity, I called that same friend. She did not understand anything and hung up. Perhaps it's for the better ...
PS. Article was written in 2000. Since then, as it turned out, Lhasa began to tour, mostly in Canada and France. In 2003, taking part in a tour of the circus big top, where the act of her sister, as a composer and performer of the accompanying music, she released a new album The Living Road. Around the same time her friend Yves Desrosiers recorded his interpretation of the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. While I managed to hear only one track from the album of Lhasa, and he gives every reason to believe that the new album will be no worse and maybe better than "La Llorona"
In addition to the three stepsisters and three half-brothers from the singer has three sisters (Skye, Aiying and Miriem), which act in European circuses as a gymnast on a trapeze acrobat and kanatohodki. For seven years, numerous family of the future singer lived in a converted school bus, shuttling between the U.S. and Mexico. The bus was not the TV, one of the most important tool in creating an American identity, and Lhasa devoted all his spare time reading. In addition, she listened to their favorite music of his parents: his father - a fan of American and Mexican "oldiz" 1940 - 1950-ies (by the way, he co-authored lyrics Floricanto), and his mother - an ethnic (Arab, Latin, gypsy, Japanese and so on etc.) music. Among his teachers Lhasa calls Billie Holliday, Chavela Vargas, Tom Waits, Cuco Sanchez, Maria Callas, Victor Haru, Jacques Brel, and Bjork. Critics have compared her work with the songs Sesario Evora and even Vladimir Vysotsky (in the latter case, presumably, referring to the degree of energy impact on the listener, not the timbre of voice). At the age of thirteen years (her family was living in San Francisco) Lhasa began singing at a local Greek cafe. According to her, she performed unaccompanied, because she was not familiar musicians and just because I could not sing ... In 1991, when Lhasa was visiting his sisters, enrolled in one of the circus school in Montreal, she met jazz guitarist Yves Desrosiers. That's when they got the idea to write the disk, based on the material of Mexican folk songs, called "La Llorona" on behalf of one of the characters in the Aztec mythology. The material for this disc for a long time tested in Montreal clubs, and only the 1996 team, joined by bassist Mario Lehár, began to record. After the disk group Lhasa performed at many festivals, not only in Canada but also in Europe. Especially the warmth of her taken in France. A year after the release of "La Llorona" has sold 50 thousand copies, gaining thereby the honorary title of "golden disk". However, since about Lhasa is not known. Maybe she broke relations with Yves Desrosiers, a union with which it was not only creative, or completely switched to painting ... In any case, it was a long silence testifies to the sincerity of her album created in which it invested before the end of the whole experience to the experience, too intimate, to be operated continuously. This CD primarily affects the integrity sound. Enveloping sound that seems to not be created only a few who participated in the recording of instruments and voices, it merged some sources that can not be recorded even in the most advanced studio: slanting stream of light, projecting window on the stone floor, dust particles, silently floating in this light, half-closed eyes singing Lhasa ... An even greater delight is the fact that the songs were recorded in the home: the instruments - in the kitchen of a Montreal friend, and the vocals of Lhasa on her kitchen, which turned out to be an ideal for recording of her voice, acoustic features. It used several tools, personally constructed Yves Desrosiers, for example, melting, like a mirage in the Mexican desert, slide bass, lonely yearning at the end of the last track disc. And, of course, the very voice of Lhasa. Saturated loneliness, misunderstood and female helplessness. Each time, listening to the album, I think that I want to hide the owner of this deep voice, like a bird, between the warm hands and protect against this callous cruel world. Without such opportunity, I called that same friend. She did not understand anything and hung up. Perhaps it's for the better ...
PS. Article was written in 2000. Since then, as it turned out, Lhasa began to tour, mostly in Canada and France. In 2003, taking part in a tour of the circus big top, where the act of her sister, as a composer and performer of the accompanying music, she released a new album The Living Road. Around the same time her friend Yves Desrosiers recorded his interpretation of the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. While I managed to hear only one track from the album of Lhasa, and he gives every reason to believe that the new album will be no worse and maybe better than "La Llorona"
Total Comments 2
Comments
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The girl singing in a choir
About all tired in a Strange Land,
On all ships, sunk into the sea,
On all who have forgotten the joy of his own.
Thus sang her voice, flying in the dome,
And the beam shone on the white shoulder
And everyone looked out of the darkness and listened,
As a white dress singing in the beam.
And everybody thought that the joy will be
What's in a quiet backwater all ships,
What's in a foreign country, tired people
Bright life itself gained.
Her voice was sweet, and the beam was thin,
And only high in the King's Gate
Mystery of Communion - a child crying
The fact that no one will come back.
August 1905Posted 16-01-2010 at 14:36 by ulysses 
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Last Tango in Harumbe
Alexei Koptsev, 21 June 2004
http://sqd.ru/music/country/the_living_roadQuote:In the Labyrinth Menin "Max Frei writes about Harumbu - City of the Dead," built of sun-white stone, enclosed in a shiny transparent sphere. Its inhabitants are doomed to a terrible meal - always roam about the streets of their bright beautiful city and suffer from emotional pain. I tried to submit music sounding in the palaces of those immortal dead. Melodies forever lost love: bitter, painful and passionate. Similar to the funeral tango, chanson for burial. Nothing like to hear if I did not have. On the other hand had to hear today, the new album Canadian singer Lhasa de Sela - The Living Road.
Its very name seemed invented sly Fry. Tibet and the Dalai Lama here completely innocent. The girl was born in the U.S., and Lhasa called her father a professor. Later, their family moved to Canada, French-speaking province of Quebec. Family for the girl were once three languages: English (spoken mother-American), Spanish (inherited from dad-Mexican) and French. Yes, and grew up Lhasa in three traditions.
Her songs are an incredible mix of Spanish ballads, chanson and tango. They heard and Parisian accordion, and the Mexican guitar and mariachi trumpet. Singing girl started early, at thirteen years. Her idols are Billie Holiday, Chavela Vargas, Tom Waits, and even Maria Callas. Strange, I confess, company.
In the work of many mystics Lhasa (she grew up on Mexican folk tales, scary and exciting stories about corpses and ghosts). Their debut album, La Llorona was devoted Weepers (ghostly virgin grieving about her lover), the name of the second - The Living Road - also symbolic. Life - a magic road which runs every lives. What awaits us in the end of the road?
A singer often compared to Frida Kahlo. Call it a musical incarnation. Lhasa, as well as Frida, is not afraid of death, draws its not dead and faded, but intentionally bright, loud colors. For her there is no taboo subjects, and subjects songs reminiscent of Nick Cave's Murder Ballads.
Surprisingly, both still quite young performer could compose a line worthy of a mature woman. So many of them bitter, fatigue and frustration:
I am the black point that wanders
În the outskirts of luck
(La Confesion)
I put my most pure thoughts up for sale
I want to forget this whole idea of «truth»
I'll keep as my guides only pleasure and guilt
(La frontera)
Singer echoed music. Going Places guitar and solar copper. Their Majeure sound only underscores the tragedy of those words. Major in music is not only fun, but scary. Remember the famous march from Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony?
It should listen to the voice of the singer, what happened to him the amazing metamorphosis. What we hear Cesaria Evora, then - Bjork, then - Suzanne Vega. And this is not imitation, Lhasa's voice talking spirits.
Songs of Lhasa - a real joy for the humanities and music lover. Try to read them under the "One Hundred years of Solitude" Gabriel Garcia Marquez. You simply "failed" in the book.
Album The Living Road was nominated in Canada for the best title of the disc. How can I understand the Canadian music critics. Play the music hard, painful, have to do over a special effort. But you will be rewarded twice, because it is thanks to the creativity of Lhasa, you can look at the special magical reality which told us Marquez and Castaneda.
Well, take the risk?Posted 21-01-2010 at 23:11 by ulysses
