A review of Susheela Raman’s 33 1/3
There’s nothing Susheela Raman [1] can’t sing. I remember thinking this the first time I heard her first record, Salt Rain [2], 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 [3], 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 [4]. Her other three records – Salt Rain [2], Love Trap [5] and Music for Crocodiles [6] 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!