Lhasa explores the Road

Montreal songstress returns from the circus life with new CD

To escape career stress, many people joke that they should run away and join the circus. Well, that is exactly what Montreal-based songstress Lhasa de Sela did. It is virtually unprecedented for a rising young musical star to quit the business just as her career has taken off, but Lhasa had the courage to do it.
After patiently honing her writing and singing skills in small Montreal clubs, she exploded into prominence with her 1998 debut album, La Lhorona. A Spanish-language album that adeptly fused elements of folk, cabaret, jazz and world music, it caught the attention of a listening public craving something fresh. The record went past platinum in Canada and did very well in France, but the pressures of success and intensive touring proved too much for Lhasa, then just 25.
With a very long-awaited second album, The Living Road, now out, Lhasa is able to look back on that tumultuous period with some perspective. "My life changed just so much after the first album came out. I felt I really needed time to adapt to that. I needed to get my balance, to adjust my inner world to what happened in the exterior world," the charming singer told Tandem over coffee and croissants recently. "I was not going to do another album that didn't come from a strong conviction and an urgent need to communicate something from a really centered place."
In Lhasa's case, regaining balance meant moving to France to join her three sisters in a circus they created, called Pocheros. "There they have a lot of what they call new or contemporary circus. It is on a small scale, in one ring, and with no animals or that tacky side. It is more a mix of theatre and dance worlds, with circus skills. My sisters have been in that world a very long time." In fact, Lhasa, American-born of Mexican and American parents, originally moved to Montreal in 1993 to be closer to her sisters, who were at circus school there.
Post-circus, Lhasa moved to Marseilles, a city she found artistically stimulating. "It was inspiring, as it has a living history. It's one of the oldest ports in the world, and it is very unbourgeois. It is populaire, it belongs to the people. They are living their lives in a beautiful setting in a very real way, and that is pretty rare."
Many of the songs on The Living Road were written there, then Lhasa returned to Montreal to record the album. She enlisted Francois Lalonde (her long-time drummer) and multi-instrumentalist Jean Massicotte to produce, while long-time collaborator Yves Desrosiers was amongst those assisting in writing some of the music. "The two producers and I worked in a symbiotic way on the record for six months. I had absolute trust in them."
The result is a simply stunning piece of work. Lhasa's pure and passionate vocals sound simultaneously classic and contemporary, and the textured and sophisticated arrangements make use of instruments as diverse as lap steel, theremin, horns and strings.
Her music defies simple categorization. Influences and inspirations range from Jacques Brel and Tom Waits to Nick Cave and Portuguese fado music. It was appropriate that she sang a duet on the recent Tindersticks album, as they both share a lushly melancholic musical vision.
Lhasa sings in Spanish, French and English on The Living Road, with equal facility. Themes of travel, distance, and isolation dominate her eloquent lyrics, for good reason. "That was just because that was what was happening in my life, that feeling of homelessness when you don't have a strong feeling of being attached to a place. It gave me like an existential vision of life, where everything seems incredible and strange and immense. It is liberating to feel you do have choices in life. Accepting solitude is one of the most empowering choices we can make."
Thankfully, Lhasa is now re-energized and committed to her creative calling once more. "I really want to be a songwriter who has a full life in music and writing songs. I always knew there would be another album. It was just a matter of time, and I am kind of surprised about how some people thought I was never coming back!"

The Living Road is now out on Audiogram. A Toronto date is expected in February 2004.

Publication Date: 2003-11-02
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3314