Lhasa de Sela – To the heart of a world

“Lhasa de Sela’s life plays like a nomadic bohemian rhapsody. Born in New York state to Mexican and Jewish parents, her adventures include an itinerant lifestyle that took her across continents and culminated in a stint singing in a French circus accompanied by an accordion-playing trapeze artist…Sung in English, French and Spanish, her songs are sweetly melodic, delicately arranged and intimate. Lhasa’s sensual phrasing and smoky timbre convey her experiences in an exotic and beautifully melancholic world.” (RMV 91,3fm wyep)

“Already compared to those of Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday, De Sela’s haunting voice is memorable on each of the 11 songs (only 3 are nonoriginal) that range in inspiration from Mexican ranchera to Eastern European klezmer.” (Cristina Del Sesto)

“Her voice had an exceptionally wide range of colours, but in all shades it was a naked voice. It challenged you to follow her to that region in the heart where she moved so freely, and to see afterward if you could still keep your mask in place.” (Robert Everett-Green)

“The tempos on Lhasa are measured and Lhasa herself never sings much above a whisper, but the power of her singing and the beauty of the songs are undeniable.” (www.allmusic.com)

“Even if you don’t understand Spanish, you can’t miss the point … the feelings. Lhasa’s just begun, but her stranger-than-fiction background and dazzling gifts already place her among music’s top-rung storytellers.” (Elena Oumano)

„The Living Road is not just a highway, it’s not a free way which is like a dead road, just a way of getting from one place to another. This is living road, a road that constantly changeing, and by being on it, you are changed also…. I said I wanted make an album that was inexorable, like unstoppable, with the feeling that life is a wheel that keep turning and you can’t stop it, and you know, and there is nowhere to stop anywhere on this road.” (Lhasa about her album „The Living Road” )

“These people like Amalia Rodrigues, Chavela Vargas, Camaron, Victor Jara, these are people who do not mess around. They’re very serious about being human beings, and I am too”(Lhasa)

“That song, Soon This Space Will Be Too Small, is kind of a turning point for me, it feels magical. It’s like alchemy or something; it’s different from everything else that I’ve ever written… Maybe if I say something general I’ll end up disagreeing with myself, but what I was going to say was that a lot of the other songs seem very caught up in human emotions and suffering and stuff like that. And that song seems to go deeper than emotion, to something else, something more mysterious…” (Lhasa about her song Soon This Space Will Be Too Small).

“Soon this space will be too small
And I’ll go outside
To the huge hillside
Where the wild winds blow
And the cold stars shine
I’ll put my foot
On the living road
And be carried from here
To the heart of the world

I’ll be strong as a ship
And wise as a whale
And I’ll say the three words
That will save us all
And I’ll say the three words
That will save us all

Soon this space will be too small
And I’ll laugh so hard
That the walls cave in

Then I’ll die three times
And be born again
In a little box
With a golden key
And a flying fish
Will set me free

Soon this space will be too small
All my veins and bones
Will be burned to dust
You can throw me into
A black iron pot
And my dust will tell
What my flesh would not

Soon this space will be too small
And I’ll go outside
And I’ll go outside
And I’ll go outside” (“Soon this space will be too small” by Lhasa)

http://lhasadesela.com/

http://www.wyep.org/index.php

http://www.allmusic.com/

http://utopiamoment.ca/archives/577

http://lovelydarkanddeep.org

http://www.amazon.com/Lhasa/dp/B0045EBTSE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293897367&sr=8-1