Singer Lhasa dies

Benjamin Minimum and Jody Gillett
NEWS 04/01/2010

The Mexican-American singer Lhasa de Sela has died of breast cancer in Montreal on 1 January 2010. She was 37. We look back at the career of an extraordinary artist.

Lhasa de Sela, named after the capital of Tibet, was born into a family of free spirits – for seven years she travelled around the Americas with her parents and sisters in a converted school-bus. Inspired by this perpetual motion, Lhasa would make up melodies which she would hum with her nose pressed up against the window, watching the highway unfold. Her sensibility is rooted at the crossroads between the Mexico of her father, a writer, and the North America of her mother, a photographer. Improvised theatrical productions with her three sisters provided evening entertainment on the road. Later, she developed her limpid vocal talent by singing in the little cafes around San Francisco from the age of 13, her repertoire consisting of Mexican rancheras and Billie Holiday songs. Her inspiration perhaps came from listening to the masters - Chavela Vargas, Tom Waits, Cuco Sanchez, Maria Callas, Victor Jara and Jacques Brel - but her style crystallized when she settled in Montreal and met the Canadian multi-instrumentalist Yves Desrosiers, who co-wrote the songs on her first album La Llorona. Her old acolyte Jean Leloup was also responsible for the arrangements and the artistic production of the 1997 album which went on to sell over 500,000 copies, an extraordinary achievement for an independent debut. Etched with the epic mournfulness of the Mexican rancheras Lhasa loved, the album unveiled a singular gift for melody and her unforgettable heart-wrenching, smoky voice. The song El Desierto turned out to be a radio hit in France where the album went triple gold.

Lhasa’s impassioned live performances were equally acclaimed and extensive international tours followed. The pressures of success become so great that the young artist decided to take a break from her career as a singer and she joined her sisters in France and the nomadic life of their childhood, devising circus performances. One year later, the adventure ended and she settled in Marseille for three years, writing songs, eventually returning to Montreal and releasing The Living Road in 2003. With songs in English, French and Spanish, the album is another haunting, very personal collection of Lhasa’s unique visions. In 2009, the singer released her third album, Lhasa, a stripped down, self-produced masterpiece.

An international tour in autumn 2009 was cancelled due to ill health and the performances she gave at the Reykavik Arts Festival in May 09 were to be her last. She will be warmly remembered as an exceptional artist who remained wholly true to her unconventional, captivating aesthetic.

Lhasa De Sela, born 27 September 1972 (Big Indian, New York), died 1 January 2010 (Montreal)

04/01/2010