Sheila Chandra has engineered a career that has consistently defied expectations — from producing lyric-less drone-based soundscapes, to forging a new global vocal vision out of a re-imagining of myriad vocal traditions. Hers is a living, breathing music that manages to reflect the context of its making, as well as creating a timeless reflection of the inimitable power of the human voice.
That pursuit of radical vocal expression has been a lifelong process. It began when she made history at only 17 in 1982 as the first South Asian woman to appear on the UK’s flagship chart show ‘Top of the Pops’ with her band Monsoon’s global hit ‘Ever So Lonely’. In a sea of then-fashionable synth-pop, Monsoon’s fresh raga-based acoustic sound, topped by trendy crash beats over sensuous tabla cross-rhythms, nevertheless insinuated its way into public consciousness.
It was a watershed moment for the South Asian diaspora in the UK. Clad in a purple silk sari and teardrop tilak, this was the first positive representation of Asians from a mainstream media that had played on racist tropes in comedy and whose documentary makers had unfairly and persistently portrayed the community as a ‘social problem’ for 20 years. Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’ was simply too innovative and catchy a record to be ignored, and a mere two years on from the Southall riots, suddenly an Asian diaspora sound was fashionable for the first time.
The 70s had featured anti-racist protesting across the nation, aiming to combat the popularity of fascist organisations like The National Front. Chandra’s appearance in traditional Indian dress, as well as her very existence as a South Asian female artist, and one utilising traditional sounds, became a radical act of representation, five years before the term ‘World Music’ was coined to represent such a free-flowing mix of cultures. It was the first of many boundary-breaking moves that she made throughout the following 40 years of her career. Those decades saw her ignoring trends and pursuing her own musical interests, regardless of the pleas of industry marketing executives. For her, breaking musical ground and moving music itself on, always seemed more important than making a commercial record and selling as many copies as possible. From: https://realworldrecords.com/features/long-reads/sheila-chandra-the-pursuit-of-radical-vocal-expression/
