Fri. 01.02. at 6:00 PM         :        Introduction of Band

                   6:15 PM         :        Susheela Raman Group with Sam Mills (UK)    

Susheela Raman

With her bewitching voice and beguiling stage presence, Susheela Raman has established herself as one of the most talented and category-defying musicians to emerge in the South Asian diaspora. Born in London to Tamil parents, she has woven the music of her South Indian roots with all the music that surrounded her as a child in England and Australia. Susheela’s music is all about crossing boundaries and bringing worlds together. Her work as singer, composer and arranger have brought her great acclaim as a recording artist and a live performer.          

Her 2001 debut album, Salt Rain was shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize.  Salt Rain  also earned Susheela a BBC best newcomer award and went gold in France. ‘Love Trap’ (2003) was recorded in Spain and brought together those Indian and European and African influences with an amazing range of musicians from all over the world.  For ‘Music for Crocodiles’ (2005) Susheela recorded in Chennai and worked with some wonderful players like Embar S. Kannan and Punnya Srinivas as well the great string players here like Shekar and Ousepachan. Her most recent record is ‘33 1/3’ which, as its name implies, is a homage to the vinyl era, features album tracks from the 60s and 70s, reworked in her own distinctive style. Having made one record sung in English Susheela is now moving in the opposite direction, studying and working with Tamil Bhakti and Folk musicans. Her next album will showcase this deeper exploration of her Tamil roots as well as her eternal pursuit of a new ‘present future’ sound.

Susheela is a natural fit for jazz festival and has performed at Montreux Jazz festival and jazz festivals. “Jazz is the ultimate open music. There is no way you can define Jazz without killing it and the same thing applies to what I do. As a singer my approach to Indian and other music has been shaped by singing a lot of jazz standards when I was younger. I have always been looking for a middle ground between Bille Holliday and Begum Akhtar. In Australia when I grew up I jammed with some great musicians like Ronnie Scott. When it came to recording I  was very influenced by the sonority of the work of  Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner and John Hassel and a lot of my work has the influence of  ‘modal jazz’ which seems like the natural way to explore raags with musicians from all over the world . One thing is that historically a lot of ‘fusion’ has been a quite conceptual elite encounter between classical guys and jazz players. My own situation is that ‘fusion’ isn’t something I do, its something I already live and embody. I don’t make my music out of curiosity but out of the necessity to make sense of who I am.

Susheela is herself known for the intensity of her live performances. “I have to stand up and move around. So do my band. I love playing to a standing audience where you can summon an energy together. You can love it or hate it but there is no scope for indifference.” I think that a live show as a rock band is a kind of ritual. You can create a sense of community. It can take you out of yourself as any other music can do, its up to the performer and the listener. For me the keys are emotion, energy and sharing.” A typical Susheela show might include some very ancient Tamil Hymns, a Bob Dylan or Captain Beefheart song, pieces by Tyagaraja or Dikshitar, some sonic experimentation, intense trance-like Bhakti music reinterpreted in her particular way, and her own superb self-penned songs like ‘The Same Song’ which, appropriately, director Mira Nair chose to use for her film version of ‘The Namesake’ tracing the path of a second generation Bengali boy in the US. Nair also uses Susheela’s characteristically original reworking of the classic Hindi film song ‘Ye Meera Divanapan Hai’. In the end, its all about songs and sounds, wherever they are from, wherever they have traveled to and come back from.

Sam Mills

Sam recalls: "I remember hearing Baul music for the first time in Honky Tonk Records in Kentish Town, where we used to rehearse. There was this extraordinary sound, which I later learned was a khamok, like a talking drum but far more extreme. It left an indelible impression on me."

The Bauls themselves seemed to have an inspired syncretism, taking on board all the religious traditions of South Asia and focusing them on the divinity of the person and the body. Perhaps because Bauls rejected orthodoxy, high classicism and caste, their sound resonated with the post-punk experimentalism that 23 Skidoo and a lot of other musicians were trying to explore.

After 23 Skidoo, inspired by the startling music from all over the world that was finding its way into North London record shops, Sam Mills went to study Anthropology at the London School of Economics, emerging with a PhD in 1992. During this time he also lived in Japan and Bangladesh and traveled around Asia.