Susheela Raman

Susheela Raman

Susheela Raman has been brought up between two cultures which is reflected in her South Indian classical (Carnatic) music sensibility against the sounds of funk, jazz, soul and pop. She has been mysteriously quiet since her experimental versions of western rock songs four years ago, but she releases an album next month, and this live preview at The Alchemy Festival showed a welcome new focus.

As she walks on stage the crowd instantly roars. Raman, looking dramatic as ever, with her big signature afro-like hair and rock’n’roll attire, surprises us all when she opens her set with a soulful hymn in ode to the Indian God Ganesh. Alongside her on stage is her partner Sam Mills who accompanies Susheela through out with the sound of gentle wash and a flurry of tabla. Her seven-piece band featured master musicians from Rajasthan, with four percussionists – including Nathoo Lal Solanki, an exponent of the stirring nagara drum – and the singer Kutle Khan, who also contributed jew’s harp and castanets.

There is something personal about this performance as though Susheela is rediscovering for herself some of the South Indian songs that she had grown up with. Occasionally music that has travelled from India contains a spiritual and somewhat phoney ‘ethereal’ edge, but here we have a sound that brings out the earthy sensuality that more typifies Indian culture, and more specifically contemporary Indian Culture.

Raman’s sound is honest and gutsy and exciting. There is a raw quality to voice that complements the accompanied chords, riffs, and grooves that transport the music from its strictly classical setting into a whole new arena of possibilities.

For many musicians, attempting to approach the music of the Carnatic world with its technical and critical levels, would be a challenging and nerve-racking process. However with her mixed, second-generation migrant background, Susheela Raman sings like a natural and resonant in hers sound is the singer seeking confluence between the musical and cultural streams of her life.

Raman’s band reworked traditional and often religious Indian pieces. Paal started as a slow, thoughtful ballad backed by violin before building to a frantic climax, driven on by the drummers and Mills’s fusion of Indian styles and R&B. Highlights included ‘Raise Up’ and a wildly original take on Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile, dominated by the Indian drumming and a more conventional ballad in English, Magdalene.

This was a spectacular and artistically ambitious comeback performance by Susheela Raman. With the singer dancing around stage to the drive of the Indian drumming, there was a rewarding feeling amongst the audience that she thought so too!

By Sumitra Upham