An artist I only discovered a few weeks ago. I can't stop listening to her. Lhasa De Sela was a Montreal-based singer with roots in Mexico and the U.S. as well as Canada. She sings in three languages, in a voice about as sultry and smoky and rich as I've ever heard.
That is, she did sing, while she was alive. She died last January, of breast cancer, at age 36.
This is, I think, the second of three albums. A few years old now and the production is possibly a bit mid-oughties sounding, if you mind that sort of thing. You shouldn't though- her preference was for spare, unorthodox, Leonard Cohen-style arrangements: unexpected trumpet solos, spare harp, an occasional drifty slide guitar, an upright bass wandering forward and then back again.
All in all either I just have a music crush, or it's genuinely amazing stuff. I think the other albums seem amazing too, but haven't heard them in full. Check this one out and let me know what you think.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/9g49s9d5pe029ug/Lhasa%20De%20Sela-%20The%20Living%20Road.zip
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The youtube video is from her last album, which is just titled Lhasa. I bought this album last week and really can't stop listening. I don't remember the last time I was so obsessed with an album, but it's been a while. Maybe it just matches the dark winter a little too well. Anyway, the newer album is much smoother and sparser-- her vocal idiosyncracies are far in the background, yielding at times almost a Linda Ronstadt or Sade effect-- but the songwriting is strong and the arrangements stay perfect. One song has a captivating banjo & harp pairing, in which each instrument sort of sounds like the other...
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