Susheela Raman

Susheela Raman

Susheela Raman is a singer of Indian descent, born in 1973 in Hendon, United Kingdom. She later moves to Australia with her family, where she studies classical South Indian song and begins performing. She also studies with the classical Indian vocalist Shruti Sadolikar.

Music and style

Her work brings together Indian music and Western forms, especially rock and soul. Although her background is in classical South Indian music, she develops a recording career that moves between Indian traditions and contemporary popular styles. Her listed genres include indie pop and rock.

Albums and recordings

Raman's first album is Salt Rain, released in 2001. It is followed by Love Trap in 2003 and Music for Crocodiles in 2005. For Music for Crocodiles, material is first recorded in Britain in Wiltshire in September 2004, then continued the following month with Indian musicians, and later mixed in Los Angeles.

She independently records 33 1/3 in 2006. The album reimagines songs from the 1960s and 1970s, including material associated with Bob Dylan, John Lennon, the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Can, Joy Division and Throbbing Gristle. Long-term collaborators Sam Mills, Vincent Segal and tabla player and percussionist Aref Durvesh feature on the record. In 2011 she releases Vel.

Recognition and film

Raman is nominated for the BBC World Music Award in 2006. In the same year, she is the subject of a one-hour documentary on ARTE titled Indian Journey, directed by Mark Kidel.

Ongoing study

She continues to research and discover music from South India, and in 2007 studies with the Bhakti singer Kovai Kamla.