Roots & Wings

Roots & Wings speaks to the giddy process of exploration without benefit of a map. It tells a story of creation from the middle, reaching back and venturing forth. By merit of her astounding body of work from her youthful gig with Monsoon to her solo output (in addition to brand-name recognition garnered from Peter Gabriel's Real World label), the time is ripe for singer Sheila Chandra. Roots & Wings, originally recorded after a nearly five-year hiatus and released in 1990, is a promise fulfilled. Listening now to Roots, one can sense that Chandra's work sounds both ingenuous and naive, a heady harmonic cycle of wordless utterances with stripped down multi-ethnic accompaniment. Both stark and lush, these pieces are marvelously phoenix-like, peaking in magnificent crescendo only to burn and be reborn. --Paige La Grone