Susheela Raman - 33 13 (11 tracks) +Album Reviews

She has quietly got better with every release.

jazzy modes | Vancouver, Canada. | 09/03/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The fourth album from vocalist Susheela Raman features her unique take on some of contemporary music's finest songs.

The idea for "33 1/3" came to Susheela while on the tour bus. She realised that her next album had to reflect the energy of her stripped down live set.

Since the last world tour, Susheela had deliberately paired her band back down to its core. Performing with just guitarist Sam Mills as accompanist or, at most, augmenting the sound by including cellist Vincent Segal and tabla payer Aref Durvesh.

Determined to capitalise on the sound of the live set, Raman took her band and rushed into a studio in Iceland. Although invaluable musical contributions are made by both Segal (Cello) & Durvesh (Tabla), firmly at the heart of this album is Raman's beautifully expressive voice and her powerful musical relationship with guitarist and producer Sam Mills.

Raman is quick to point out that although this is highly re-imagined set, she's not looking to disguise the fact that this is a covers album. A record made up of of an eclectic selection of art-rock oddities that have helped to shape her IDENTITY as a musician, just as much as her passion for Indian classical music has done in previous outings. Susheela just felt that the time was right to address the influence these contemporary classics have had on her.

Talking about her "IDENTITY,"I'm happy in my multiple identity" she says. "After all, the idea of being 'English' gets more accommodating all the time. It's just that I come at it a bit differently because of my Tamil background. It's the same with music, I've played 'Indian' music with musicians from all corners of the globe and being between worlds is a powerful creative position. I really enjoy it. And while this is an album of 'rock' songs, it's full of Indian and African references... and in the end I think it still sounds unmistakably like a Susheela Raman record".

She strips the songs to their essence and lets them breathe.

Beefheart's "Love Lies" and Can's "Yoo Doo Right" are rather good, but the real treats are Velvet Underground's "I'm Set Free", Throbbing Gristle's grubby "Persuasion" and Joy Division's "Heart and Soul".

In this company, "Like a Rolling Stone" is too obvious, and Raman struggles with the soul-stripping of "Ruler of My Heart" and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" but otherwise it's her most consistent set yet.

Susheela Raman has quietly got better with every release, indeed.

Music For Crocodiles

Breathing Under Water

Philtre

OK

Love Trap

Without Zero"

The Weakest Album in her Catalog

Cabir Davis | 10/27/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I have all of Susheela's albums, and its becoming increasingly clear that her weakest moments are when she records in the English language. My favorite album from her so far remains her 2001 debut "Salt Rain". Much of this was recaptured on her second album "Love Trap", but a little of her confusion began showing there.

Then came "Music for Crocodiles", and despite the more tedious musical compositions, the production had never been better. In fact, I would call that a reference quality disc - the stellar production enhanced the instrumentation to an excellent degree. Now comes her fourth album "33 1/3", and while the album has been panned in France and the rest of Europe (Germany and France remain Susheela's niche markets to date), it is not altogether terrible.

The problem is with the song choice, and the fact that virtually all of the songs are in English. As a world musician, the thing that made Raman stand out was her ability to sing in Spanish, French, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi, and make every album so amazingly eclectic. As it is, she has chosen some really boring tracks to cover here, and all of them drone on interminably. I was frankly quite surprised at the poor quality of musicianship here, and its evident that Raman isn't quite in her element on this CD.

Try to listen to a few tracks from this, to understand what I'm talking about. And if you would like a true sampling of Raman, stick to her debut CD - that remains her best work to date."

Doing a covers album, 101

David | 11/05/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For many artists, the covers album issued after two or three collections of original material usually signifies little more than the drought of inspiration and a short-cut into a creative cul-de-sac - not so Susheela Raman, who's new set "33 1/3" is an object lesson in presenting other people's songs in new ways and making them her own.

Raman has always experimented with high quality covers from both East and West in all her releases, alongside self-penned material. Joan Armatrading's Save Me (on 'Love Trap') was beautiful but perhaps too reverent, while Song To the Siren, which she made into a beautiful signature song, would always have a pretty tough job competing with This Mortal Coil's 'cover to end all covers' version of the Tim Buckley classic released in 1983. This album consolidates and moves forward, and nails the whole art of reinterpretation.

The CD contains 10 songs, many that are well-known (Voodoo Chile), others of which are likely to be unfamiliar to many listeners (Persuasion). The new album mixes fairly straightforward readings of some of the songs (the Velvet Underground's 'I'm Set Free' is a beautiful, straightforward statement of intent that stays faithful until a furious tabla break and scatted vocal takes it to new place) with glorious moments of deconstruction and reinvention (Joy Division's Heart and Soul is played to bring out its religious overtones and a dark sensuality that is continents away from Manchester of the late 1970s).

Not all the versions work - Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' is impressive and ambitious but in a world in which Dylan covers are everywhere (the 'Masked and Anonymous' soundtrack of 2003 has the field cornered, and another two CDs of this stuff have just been released this week as 'I'm Not There') - but this is a minor quibble.

So if you like Susheela Raman's music, you have an open mind about hearing unexpected material given an innovative once-over (the singing and playing on this record are exemplary, and full of space) then you'll *really* like this.

"

Strange and wonderful cover versions

Carsten Knoch | Toronto, ON Canada | 02/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There's nothing Susheela Raman can't sing. I remember thinking this the first time I heard her first record, Salt Rain, in 2001. Raman is a British singer of Indian origin (who grew up in Australia), and 33 1/3 is her fourth album, an homage to other people's songs, particularly album tracks from beloved vinyl records (hence the title). On her website, she describes 33 1/3 as "a kind of homage to the well-attested pleasures of the `long player,' of owning some tangible artefact of music's immaterial magic."

Her song choices are wonderfully, almost absurdly pluralist and wide-ranging:

I'm Set Free - Velvet Underground/Lou Reed

Yoo Do Right - Can

Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Traditional (I'm wondering if it's a Nirvana reference?)

Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan

Love Lies - Captain Beefheart

Oh My Love - John Lennon

Voodoo Chile - Jimi Hendrix

Heart and Soul - Joy Division

Persuasion - Throbbing Gristle

Ruler of My Heart - Linda Ronstadt (Norah Jones?)

Holidays in France - Michel Polnareff

What unites this material is the tasteful treatment is gets. There is reverence in these cover versions, yet - in the best `jazz' tradition - they are often barely recognizable, having been re-fashioned into entirely new music. Raman's band, led by guitar player/producer/arranger Sam Mills, is a world music powerhouse - everything pulses with a lucid life force, a deep-seated rhythm that makes even the slower numbers swing. You never lose interest: in her renditions, these songs become new again, validated by being re-imagined and entered into Raman's repertoire, all of which sounds like a ritual, an incantation, an exploration of identity and of how music unites us easily and naturally.

As world music seems to have fallen permanently out of favour in the English-speaking world, Raman appears to tour mostly in France (the last bastion, apparently; the French appear uninterested in restricting their music consumption to white men with no rhythm). This is a shame, because I'd like to see her live and because I think her music most strongly relates to what we think of as vocal jazz - her closest musical `relative' might be someone like Cassandra Wilson, who is also known for her tasty and virtually unrecognizable but beautiful cover versions.

33 1/3 is an independent release. It appears to be somewhat available on Amazon, but you can also order it from Raman's web store. Her other three records - Salt Rain, Love Trap and Music for Crocodiles are widely available and highly recommended. They all contain some of the best singing, and downright the best and most organic sounding acoustic/world band you'll ever hear.

Afterthought: Can't have a review of 33 1/3 without at least mentioning the superb weirdness that is Susheela Raman's cover of Throbbing Gristle's `Persuasion.' Wow. What a strange piece of music!"

Search - Susheela Raman :: 33 13

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