For those poor isolated souls stuck with Top 40 only, here's some new sounds:
1) Susheela Raman: she's getting a lot of media exposure here in Paris. Cool bio: born in London from South Indian parents, raised in Australia, studied indian vocalists in India. First album made in London with musicians from "57 countries". She adapts 18th century indian music with her new material. Interesting, not my favorite cup of (Indian) tea but very likely to please Joni fans. 2) Much more heart wrenching to my taste is Sarah-Jane Morris. A cross between Sherelle Carey Smith and Tom Waits. Excerpts taken from the liners note that I think are very true: "Deciding what kind of singer Sarah-Jane Morris is -at least by the standards applied to record store displays-may be a fruitless task. But if she is not "just" a jazz singer, anymore than she is just a soul singer, or a contemporary blues artist, her performances are always models of powerful song writing, atmospheric settings and passionate delivery.......... In working previously with such uncompromising idiosyncratic singers as Tom Waits and Marianne Faithful, Marc Ribot has already shown how open he is to just such unorthodox marriage of voice and guitar as this. Morris and Ribot recorded this music in 3 days, and selected the material by the most audacious impromptu of methods. Sarah-Jane Morris pulled an assortment of her favorite CD's from her collection then played the songs to Ribot who worked out the chords while she wrote down the lyrics. Then they went straight to first-take, no rehearsal recordings." I never heard of this singer before this album, which is produced on her own label (Fallen Angel). Check it out, I think you won't be disappointed. Laurent
