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A Mexican-American in Montreal From Les FrancoFolies to Lilith Fair, Lhasa de Sela is a rare Spanish songstress in El Norte by CHRIS YURKIW
But Montrealers should know by now that a soft-spoken and breathy-voiced kid named Lhasa de Sela has been kicking around the night clubs of their Plateau for some five years, moving mainly in franco circles, but always moving upward with a unique type of song inspired as much from Mexican popular standards of the 1930s and '40s as it is from European cabaret music. And de Sela's FrancoFolies show is typical of her perennial position: not really fitting in. Her mother was an American who lived in Mexico, her father a Mexican who grew up in the States, and her whole family roved around the continent in a bus for years before settling in San Francisco. But when she came to Montreal in 1991 to visit her three sisters who were all attending the National Circus School, she immediately felt at home and fell in love with the city. Today, Montreal loves her back--not to mention the rest of Canada that's quickly becoming enraptured by her debut album La Llorona (Audiogram). But fitting in--or not fitting in--has never really been a problem for the 25-year-old. In fact, it's precisely the idea of a lush and lulling Spanish-language album being released not only in Canada but in Quebec that's helping de Sela make her mark. "When I was groping for identity at certain times in my life," she says, "I would fall into the self-pity of not fitting in anywhere: 'I'm not one thing and I'm not the other. Oh, woe is me.' But my family is so mixed up [ethnically] that if you're going to be tormented about your cultural identity, there's just too much material there. At a certain point I realized that it would be ridiculous for me to try to pin it down to one thing." And ridiculous, perhaps, to gnash teeth over. So de Sela has taken the multi-culti thing and runs with it to come up with a compelling repertoire of stylized Mexican ballads and similar songs of her own design--with help from key collaborator and former Jean Leloup guitarist Yves Desrosiers. "The album's in Spanish," says de Sela, "but that can be misleading to people because I don't consider myself a Mexican. And I'm sure that any Mexican who meets me would spot me right away as an imposter." But it's exactly that kind of cultural or musical impurity that makes her music something a little new under the sun. "I've realized that the human capacity for suffering is so huge that if you can just scratch someone and an ocean of sadness will come out. You don't have to be living all these dramatic conflicts to tap into intense emotions. They are there in the smallest thing that you do." Lhasa de Sela and Bévinda (from Portugal) perform as part of the "Chansons" series of Les FrancoFolies de Montréal at the Spectrum this Friday, Aug. 1. 7pm |
So what's a Mexican-American who sings in Spanish doing at Les FrancoFolies? Taking time to squeeze in a hometown gig amid jazz fests in Toronto, folk festivals in Vancouver and a little ride on a hot summer tour called Lilith Fair--that's what.