Sheila Chandra

At the age of 17, Sheila Chandra became Britain's first mainstream Asian pop star as the voice of chart toppers, Monsoon. The period from the catchy strains of Ever So Lonely to the breathtaking timelessness of ABONECRONEDRONE comprises an extraordinary evolutionary leap. Contact with Real World and WOMAD in 1991 allowed Chandra, with WEAVING MY ANCESTORS' VOICES and THE ZEN KISS, to illustrate the idea of moving seamlessly between various traditions through the mind and voice of one person. "There was a kind of helpful obviousness on these two albums, which meant some of the subtler stuff got ignored," she says. "The experience of 'being sung' is much more up-front, if such an experience can be considered up-front, on ABONECRONEDRONE."

"Being sung" is as it implies. On opening her throat to sing, Chandra becomes a conduit for a voice channeled by a form of universal consciousness, an effortless feeling where she doesn't have to try and place the notes at all. Anyone who has witnessed Sheila Chandra live will have observed the experience - one she likens to "attentive waiting". "Something's coming through but you have to be receptive to it," she says. "The idea of listening to the subtleties yourself, being moved by them, having your own imagination play tricks on you, in a way, connects you to the same force the singer is connecting to."

There's a sense of the primordial about ABONECRONEDRONE. Picture a feisty old virago stirring the melting pot of creativity, birthing little whispers of ideas and gifts of insight into a world of potential. Chandra places the listener smack bang inside the cauldron ...

"This album focuses on the experience of the listener being between my ears or hearing what I hear," she says. "It's incomplete while it lacks the attentive listener's experience, and that makes it more like performance art. Although the album uses the same structures and techniques as WEAVING MY ANCESTORS' VOICES and THE ZEN KISS, this time, it puts you in the place of the creator. The tracks were written by me deciding on the drones first, listening to them very intently and simply singing what I heard."

ABONECRONEDRONE is intended to provoke a response, so both inner and outer listening are of paramount importance. "Drones are designed so that you will hear different things in them on different systems, or at different volume levels, even on the same system." Chandra's drones have been laboriously treated and enhanced, so that the emerging harmonics spark melodies which attract the ear on a subtle level. They're the fundamentals: the very bones of the drone. Titled numerically to avoid connotations and permit a freer experience, ABONECRONEDRONE' incorporates everything from layered C and G vocals, tenpuras (the Indian classical drone instrument), harmoniums and white noise to complicated 24-track mixes.

While Chandra insists that it's possible to approach the album without prior knowledge of its predecessors - "The idea of being directed and something flowing through you is universal." - she admits there is an advantage in knowing the work's genealogy. "Because there's a kind of playful expectation that's deliberately overturned. It's not obvious song structures or flashy vocal percussion, or the up-front, emotional solo voice performances that WEAVING and THE ZEN KISS typified. If that's what you're expecting, then there's a push over the edge into something different." 

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Please visit Sheila Chandra's official website at www.sheilachandra.com

For more information on Sheila Chandra's innovative recordings on Indipop, proudly re-issued by Narada World, please visit  www.narada.com/sheilachandra.htm

ABONECRONEDRONE  62356 Real World
THE ZEN KISS  62342 Real World
WEAVING MY ANCESTORS' VOICES 62322 Real World

©2000 Real World Records, Ltd.  All rights reserved.