Susheela Raman
Music For Crocodiles

Light and enveloping wisps of steam rise from the cup, spreading the spicy fragrance of a drink that seems to be sipped together with her, while her music fills the room. A carefully balanced mix of flavors, a sensation of constant warmth emanated from the meeting of meticulously crafted sounds and the voice. A voice I had already heard in the beautiful debut album, but here it seems to have reached greater self-awareness, a measured versatility.

“Salt Rain” (2001) had revealed the qualities of Susheela Raman, an Indian born in London, who lived in Australia. The multifaceted geography of her background seemed to reflect in the map that the album drew, drawing from "folk," reggae, and soul solutions.
In 2003, “Love Trap” gathered the results of greater visibility, even in terms of decent commercial success, which, however, was characterized by an excessive profusion of suggestions and arrangements.

What I am listening to is instead a work of great balance, excellently produced, which condenses the essence of multiple influences in song form, without ever feeling forced, without artificially bending traditional sounds to the yoke of world exoticism.
As if, liberated (rather than constrained to a cliché) by previous success, Raman has allowed herself a more relaxed and natural breath, which reverberates in all 13 tracks.
These are songs oscillating in a dimension that shuns abundance to allow the simple elements that constitute them to vibrate in the clear air surrounding them.
An attitude accommodated in the construction of the tracks, created by recording, for the first time, with musicians from southern India, and then by using African, Asian, and American musicians, as well as the colleague guitarist and producer Sam Mills, completing the work in London.
The perfectly blended sounds weave textures through which Susheela's often sinuous voice melodies traverse with expansive effectiveness, modulated on mid-low registers.

Most of the songs are sung in English and Hindu, with French appearing only for the movements of the delicate ballad "L'Ame Volatile."
Some seem to condense better around a more typical structure, such as the opening track “What Silence Said,” the equally simple melody enclosed in “The Same Song,” or in “Meanwhile” traversed by strings with which Susheela's voice dialogues.
Strings also furrow the more “ethnic” surface and are rippled by tablas in “Chordiya,” on which unfolds a more "free" and modulated vocal performance. In another instance, it's a liquid guitar suggesting the hypnotic and repeated flow that accompanies the Indian narration of “Idi Samayam,” curiously tinged with African aromatics.
The album closes with the perhaps least convincing episode, that “Leela” with its more playful stride, which probably wants to push the eclecticism of interpretation a bit further, but ends up sounding foreign, almost an improbable bouncy version, garnished with violins, of a Michelle Shocked track. I prefer the penultimate track, “Sharavana,” with the long atmospheric intro leading to the vocals on a percussive carpet punctuated by soft bass and a light bluesy guitar.

“Music For Crocodiles” is effectively represented by the album cover image, portraying the Anglo-Indian musician sipping a drink. A face on which light paints a chiaroscuro that highlights, through gradual contrasts rather than blinding overexposures, the seductive beauty of a deep gaze on seemingly simple things.
Not a masterpiece. But a good piece of work. One of the best of the past year in the now inflated market of so-called world music.