Search - Sheila Chandra, Ganges Orchestra :: This Sentence Is True

Worth the wait ...

Devi Bhakta | Boston, MA USA | 04/12/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After completing her impressive Real World trilogy in the mid-90's, Sheila Chandra disappeared. Her liner notes for this long-awaited follow-up say she spent most of the past five years nursing a voice injury, which explains a lot. After the vocal acrobatics of "Ancestors' Voices" and "Zen Kiss," her final Real World offering, "ABoneCroneDrone," was a dreamy swirl of ambient noise, with Sheila's voice deep in the mix, just one of many half-heard sounds. It was a beautiful effort, though, and one I return to often.



Since then, Sheila has managed to keep her work in the record stores, as several labels (first Shanachie, then Caroline, then Stern's, and now Narada) successively repackaged, remixed, and remastered her seminal Indipop recordings of the 1980's. (Her early work with the Brit pop ensemble Monsoon has also been re-released, and is still in print, on Mercury I think.) I've been a Chandra junkie since I first bought the vinyl version of Quiet back in '84, so I dutifully shelled my hard-earned change for these seemingly endless marketing gimmicks, perhaps hoping that some previously undiscovered glimpses of genius would be uncovered in the remasters.



I didn't find anything that significant, I'm afraid, but I wasn't a bit resentful. Sheila's work is very real, very vital, very worthwhile and very rewarding. More and more, as the years have passed, she's recorded albums that give back to her listeners exactly as much as they themselves bring to the experience of listening. The harder you listen, the more you hear. The more often you listen, the more you hear. That's the best kind of music, in my experience.



Then, in late 1999 and early 2000, Indipop unexpectedly released two more Chandra oddities, titled EEP1 and EEP2, and both recorded under the nom de plume "Ganges Orchestra." They were a couple of very off-the-wall experimental discs playing with various "found sounds" used as musical drones, and with Sheila's voice on a few tracks, again very sparse and low in the mix.



And now -- finally! at last! -- Sheila Chandra is all the way back, with an entire album of new material. And, yes! -- it was worth the wait. "This Sentence is True" is, for the most part, a polished extension of the ideas sketched out on the two EEP discs (which is, I guess, why this album is credited to "Sheila Chandra and the Ganges Orchestra"). But this time, Sheila's voice -- sounding very much in top form (although she says in her notes she's only at about 75%) -- is right at the top of the mix. In other words, this album is all about Sheila's voice, whereas the EEP's (and "ABoneCroneDrone," for that matter) were primarily about drone theory.



"This Sentence is True" is a very experimental album, with lots of dissonant noise, electronic buzzing and ambient oddness -- including manipulated voice clips of Sheila speaking the local tongue to a nationalist crowd at a benefit concert in the former Soviet state of Kazakhstan. But please, don't be put off buy all of this -- because it works beautifully. The album is totally accessible, even on the first listen; probably more accessible than "ABoneCroneDrone."



Which brings us to the final track, the 15-minute-plus "ABoneCroneDrone 7." Whereas the rest of "This Sentence is True" builds off the EEP albums, this closing piece uses her final Real World recording as a touchstone, and ties all of these diverse works together. For added interest, Sheila -- who has (wisely or not, I'm not quite sure) taken to writing extended explanatory notes for just about everything she records -- offers up an extended essay that lays bare the theory and experiences at work behind each track on the album. It reduces the mystery of the whole thing a bit, but will provide useful handholding for those who are unfamiliar with Sheila's previous work or uncomfortable venturing into experimental music. All in all: "This Sentence is True" is a monumental piece of work, and a worthy return to form for one of the most consistently fascinating artists recording today."

One of her finest

Andrew Thomas | Kansas City, MO | 11/11/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Chandra's progression continues with this outstanding effort, albeit in a more experimental vein. Her previous output on Real World focused on a single vocal line, and this album reintroduces vertical layering into her sound. The concept of the drone is still prominent, but the sounds are manipulated more, and white noise is frequently interpolated (most strikingly on True). The vocal ranges also have different timbres, from caustic rattling to vaguely Gregorian atmosphere. The word "derivative" has cropped up in some of the other reviews on this page; I don't buy it for a minute. This is easily one of the most distinct albums released this year, and deserves wide recognition."

Another shiela chandra junkie, but not as euphoric

allthatfall | 08/01/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I am mesmerized by Shiela Chandra. I repeatedly listen to her fantastic earlier work and would give five stars to both "Ancestors' Voices" and "Zen Kiss"; the latter is especially powerfully experimental and beautiful. Unfortunately, though she clearly continues to evolve and experiment with the potential of ther voice, for me this work fails to display the breathless intimacy and unique character of her previous recordings. "This sentence" suggests that Shiela has been listening to a lot of Talvin Singh: she's moved away from her reliance on her naked, gorgeous voice and moved into a very Hindi-pop play with voice-distortion and synthesized atmospherics. If you know her work, this has a lot in common with the goals of "BoneDrone." Finally, whereas such works as "Kiss" really single her out as singing in a style of her own, I agree with another comment that sees "This sentence" as being derivative and too easily confused with other minimalist/pop experiments."