33 1/3

Mood Music

     

It seems to me that this spring albums of cover versions are in vogue. While Placebo is recording an album full of covers and Mark Ronson, Bryan Ferry and Patti Smith are all out with their CD of cover versions I am having difficulty labelling Susheela Raman’s latest 33 1/3 as, “just another album of covers that comes out this spring”, simply because Susheela is not your ordinary White pop priestess or Black R&B diva. Susheela’s Asian origin, her musical background in Carnatic music and her approach to music (fusing global grooves, that is) makes her latest offering 33 1/3 – a collection of cover versions, unique from the ones in the offering. Amazingly enough Susheela is not new to this trend of covering songs. Her debut consists of traditional songs by Dikshitar, Tyagaraja, Vasudevachar and heart-wrenching cover of Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren. She covered Joan Armatrading on her Love Trap CD. Recorded and edited in various living rooms in Iceland, Italy and England between May and November 2006 Susheela collaborates with her long time musical partners Sam Mills and Aref Durvesh and together they cover the likes of Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix. Yes, the album is not made of original songs but what makes this album work is the intention. All the musicians involved decided to do something different with the songs so that they sound fresh and new and I think to an extent they have succeeded in achieving that because the songs sounds original- original in their arrangements, original in the way they are performed and it showcases the diversity of the musicians and gives songs like Voodoo Child a whole new pall of mysticism. 33 1/3 sounds moody at times but this is one emotional and eclectic record. If Susheela is paying her tributes to the giants of modern day songwriters and musicians then this is the way to do it…but if she is trying to do a ‘crossover’ to please some white music reviewers and sell some more records then this might be the record which sees the death of an artist and birth of an performer. I hope Susheela will prove my latter statement wrong with her next record.