The live version of “Lament of McCrimmon / Song of the Banshee” combines the drone-based qualities of Irish and Scottish folk traditions with Sheila Chandra‘s signature South Asian vocal techniques.
Sheila Chandra shared, “It’s my interpretation of McCrimmon’s Lament with lots of Asian vocals woven into it. The thing about those laments is they’re beautiful, but they’re also very stoic, and they tend to be written in the major scale because they’re to be played on bagpipes. So, I juxtaposed it with some beautiful mourning, shehnai, nasal-type melodies written in a minor scale to represent the actual emotion flowing underneath and around those stoic words of the verse.
“The track is from ‘Roots and Wings’ which is the album previous to my Real World Records trilogy. That was my fifth solo album. But because it’s voice and drone-based, it’s kind of a precursor, a prequel track if you like. I used to do it a lot live, so you are kind of getting a feel from how I got into being able to work through, well, basically switching vocal traditions on the turn of a dime.”
Author: World Music Central News Room
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