Lhasa de Sela
Lhasa

This is a great album by a great artist. Recorded and released in 2009 by Lhasa de Sela, one year before her untimely death, "Lhasa" is her most well-known and sold work, in respect of the absurd and macabre commercial mechanism that ties the passing of the artist with the increase in revenue, following the emotional wave of the masses.

As is customary, in this work the artist establishes a breaking point with the splendid previous album "The Living Road," which in turn had distanced itself from "La Llorona," a debut album with warm Hispanic sounds.

Certainly mature and intimate, perhaps less carefree compared to the previous ones, "Lhasa" reflects the experiences (not only musical) matured in the six years of discographic silence. The album contains about ten slow songs, relaxing melodies derived from constant embroidery of piano or guitar. These create a sweet but never mushy rhythm, like a lulling lullaby. A dry drum and the alternation of various instruments complete the work. But it is the expert hand of the seamstress that sets the rules: Lhasa's eclectic voice, like a zipper, bursts in unpredictably, takes the various fabrics and generates a coherent overall vision, as in "Is Anything Wrong" (enriched by the pleasant harp of Sarah Pagé) or tears the fabric and insinuates into the ear, until then drunk with melody, an imperceptible feeling of anguish and turmoil ("Rising," "What Kind of Heart"). She pays her debt to soul in the lively "Love Came Here," in the melancholic "Bells," and in the intriguing "The Lonely Spider," caresses pop in "Fool’s Gold." She breaks the mystical and bucolic dream of the listener in the enigmatic "1001 Nights" only to then force them to continue in "I'm Going In" in the poignant "Anyone and Everyone" in a crescendo of discomfort and melancholy. You are enveloped, tossed, and finally dazed.

Summing up is difficult. There is a sense of an articulated, complex, tormented search. A pleasant and sweet music, but a voice that, in an attempt to adapt to the context, ends up badly concealing a fundamental melancholy. Perhaps it is precisely that emotional wave, that mental prejudice, that "she's dead and I won't hear her anymore" that plays a cruel trick. Hearing the gloom even where it isn’t, constantly feeling a lump in the throat for fifty minutes. Perhaps it is the anger against an incurable disease that took away this great talent. Thoughts, or rather thoughts that niggle. About the knowledge of her illness during the conception and recording of the tracks, about the hope of still having an entire life ahead, about the possible possession of that "ultimate inspiration," of that "muse" (horrible terms, I know) that encourages the creation of such an intense work. The only concrete fact is this splendid album. She was an all-around artist, competent and open to what was around her. True inspiration she always had. The regret lies in the doubt, doubt about the enormous truncated potential, about future projects not even remotely conceived.