Lhasa

If you missed Lhasa de Sela at the Sidetrack Cafe last winter, now's your chance to find out what all the fuss was about. In May, CKUA's Bill Coull introduced one of her tracks by dubbing her "one of the most soulful singers I've heard in the last decade." He also described her La Llorona album as "one of the best released in Canada last year." More often known simply as Lhasa, she was born in the early '70s and raised on the road by a Mexican father and an American mother. She lived all across the U.S. and Mexico before settling in Montréal in 1991. There she met jazz musician Yves Desrosiers, and they got together with bassist Mario Légarè to write La Llorona. Rootsworld also speaks highly of her: "a strange and unusual singer she is, part hippie-blues singer, part Edith Piaf, and, with her arranger and musical partner, Yves Desrosiers, she has developed into a smoky, murky version of Tom Waits (see Bone Machine) as Mexican jazz diva." Appearing with Lhasa are Yves Desrosiers on guitar, Francois Lalonde on drums, Mario Legare on bass, and Didier Dumoutier on accordian.

  -- SA