Of the many “wow” moments during Sault’s debut live show in London last December, one soloist floored everyone. Early in the evening, a woman in an ethereal white dress, alone under the spotlights, unleashed elegant, deeply moving vocal acrobatics that drew on south Asian classical traditions. She was performing a version of Monsoon’s 1982 UK hit Ever So Lonely, with improvised lyrics such as: “If I stand/ In the lessons of my mothers/ Let me sing.” (The audience did, with full attention.)
Many wondered who this beguiling presence was, whose voice had a delicate emotive heft that could turn stoics into sobbing wrecks. It was Ganavya Doraiswamy, a New York-born, California-based, South India-raised scholar and multi-instrumentalist. She has already worked on an album produced by Quincy Jones and collaborated with jazz luminaries including Esperanza Spalding but has only recently returned as an album artist herself. Doraiswamy was taught carnatic music by her mother and grandmothers, and learned storytelling techniques during a youth spent on southern India’s pilgrimage trail. She relocated back to the US, took up the first of many arts degrees and released her first album in 2018: Aikyam: Onnu, which translated jazz standards into her native Tamil.
It has taken six years to release its follow-up, tellingly titled Like the Sky I’ve Been Too Quiet. Released on Shabaka Hutchings’s label Native Rebel Recordings, the album features Hutchings, Floating Points and the LA multi-instrumentalist Carlos Niño, co-producer of the recent André 3000 album, among others. The nocturnal blend of spiritual jazz and burbling electronics provides a lush, atmospheric backdrop for Doraiswamy’s voice, which dances, as if en pointe. It’s among the most evocative albums you’ll hear this year. Let her sing indeed.
Like the Sky I’ve Been Too Quiet will be released via Native Rebel Recordings on 15 March; Ganavya is at St Pancras Old Church, London, 13-15 March
