LHASA de Sela had a peripatetic upbringing, partly living on a bus which plied between the US and Mexico.
Her father is Mexican, her mother American, and, to add to the mix, she spent some years growing up in Quebec. Her music is just as eclectic and on this follow-up to her 1998 debut, La Llorona, she absorbs many influences to emerge sounding defiantly different.
She sings in Spanish, French and English, giving each song a lingering, sparse beauty. The English songs are the least successful, perhaps because there is no mystery.
Con Toda Palabra and La Maree Haute are haunting numbers which tremble on the margins of magic, while Anywhere On This Road, despite its theme of wandering, seems more fixed and ordinary. In English, Lhasa can turn a phrase to bring you up sharp: "I love a man who's afraid of me." Big in France and Canada, this multi-lingual singer is sombre, occasionally difficult, sometimes utterly beguiling. She suggests Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, but is mostly beyond easy comparison.
Updated: 09:07 Thursday, February 12, 2004
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