Neil Spencer 

Sheema Mukherjee: Sheema review – a singular creation

The sitarist's charming debut album makes free with everything from raga to Radiohead, writes Neil Spencer
  
  


Classically trained but a fusioneer by nature, sitarist Sheema Mukherjee has played with trance troupe Transglobal Underground and folk radicals the Imagined Village among others. This solo debut (vinyl/MP4 only) draws from her palette with panache. Slash Sitar is a showboating rock thrash (air sitar, anyone?); Sikkim Girls comes drenched in Bollywood strings; Morning Celeste is a dreamy neoclassical raga; and the driving Little Dragon sounds as though John Lee Hooker had mastered the sitar. More unexpected are sweetly sung covers of Radiohead and Françoise Hardy and playful evocations of 60s pop (Mrs Moo) and sodden samosas on an English beach (Bit God). A charming, altogether singular creation.

 

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