Friday, July 4, 2008

The amazing life of Lhasa

By Dan Hilborn
Published July 23, 2005


When Lhasa de Sela's first album, the 1998 release La Llorona, became a runaway international success - selling 400,000 copies in France alone - the Montreal-based singer/songwriter was clearly flustered by the response.

So, for the next five years, she ran away herself, into the heart of Europe to join the circus with her three sisters, while her adoring fans were left to wonder what happened to the songstress with the haunting lyrics and beguiling music.

By 2003, de Sela was recharged and ready to take on the world again, and she released her second album, The Living Road, which recently earned her the BBC's 2005 World Music Award for North American acts.

Last Thursday, de Sela played at the Istanbul Jazz Festival in Turkey and she'll be touring through Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany before coming home to Canada to play the sixth annual Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival on Aug. 13.

"I love this life," she told the Burnaby NOW just days before heading over the Atlantic. "I love writing songs, I love recording them, I love singing them and I love travelling.

"It's a wonderful life. I even love interviews. I think I was born to be a singer."

For those who do not know de Sela, be prepared for a real treat. John Orysik, media director of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society, said her audiences are always spellbound.

"The Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival brings in musicians who are purveyors of different cultural traditions, and Lhasa is definitely one of them," Orysik said. "We've had her at the Jazz Festival a couple of times and, let me tell you, the audience is just left in rapt attention. She is a strong, charismatic performer."

With a slight, elfin frame and a lilting, throaty voice that is as alluring in English as when she sings in Spanish or French, de Sela is guaranteed to take her audience on a musical journey.

She'll be bringing her three-piece band to Burnaby - guitarist Rick Haworth, cellist Melanie Auclair and percussionist Marc-Andre Larocque - to create a sound that's been described as a mix of Mexican balladeer, French chansonnier and Quebecois poet.

"I really enjoy working with the trio, especially after touring with the big (10-piece) band.

"It's very refreshing, very intimate and kind of more rootsy," she said.

"With the trio, it's very close to the songs the way they were written and there is a good communication with the audience."

De Sela grew up with unconventional parents - her mother was a musician and her father was an itinerant carpenter - who travelled North America in a converted school bus with their four daughters.

It was an experience that shaped her life profoundly.

"It seemed kind of normal but, at the same time, I knew it was an extraordinary life," she said.

"When I was six years old, I wanted to write the story of my life."

And while she recognizes her influences are diverse, she is reluctant to have herself labelled as part of the world music, folk music or any other kind of musical genre.

"I just try to make the music that sounds the most beautiful to my ears at the time I'm making it," she said.

"My tastes change and my desires about music change.

"But I think what may be the biggest influence was that I grew up with all kinds of music without thinking that any of it was strange or extraordinary.

"It was normal to be listening to music from all over the world - South America, Mexico, a lot of black music, Bob Dylan, also Arab music, gypsy music, Asian and classical.

"So it was a very incredibly rich diet of music right from the time I was born. When I first heard about world music, I didn't know what they were talking about.

"It's just music to me."

Burnaby will be the final stop on her current world tour.

After the festival, de Sela intends to return home to Montreal, where she'll spend time with her family working on a variety of projects, including a new album that she expects will place a greater emphasis on instrumental music.

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