Notes About My New CD

I am so happy to tell you about my new CD. After a long labour of love over some years, it is finally launched.

At the beginning of this long road, I recorded half of it in India, in a recording studio that was one room, so all the instruments swam into one another. Ron Sunsinger, a genius friend, tried to separate the “voices” as they are called. And we recorded some more of the songs in his studio. Then he worked on all the tunings, those from India and those from here.

And then everything in my life changed again. I was in a horrible car accident. Someone turned left, into my car and me. It is still a miracle to me that I am sitting here, writing.

Reading this, you might be thinking, “we thought she as a dancer, we didn’t know she wrote songs.” Both are true. I write songs, or they write me, and I am a dancer. Music is the thing, and in ancient places, music was the umbrella which included dance. Dance and music go together.

Well, the healing from the accident took a lot longer than I thought it would. So the CD went on the back burner. About 2 years ago, after fiddling with it, I realized I didn’t feel quite right about the sound of it all. I love the songs. They are like gifts to me. Most of them have lyrics from mystical texts which help me.

Going off to India again for the work with The Storydancer Project. Since I spent a lot of time working in Delhi and I know a lot of wonderful musicians there, I asked one of them to recommend a good recording studio. And by the way, yes, that is where the air is bad. I have an air filter in my room. And that is where our programs are, in the poorest of places. Another story. www.storydancer.com

My friend who has recorded on this CD, Murad Ali, is a fantastic Sarangi player. A very ancient bowed Indian instrument with a haunting sound. A favorite sound of my heart. He suggested a friend of his, Sumit Babar, who not only has a state of the art recording studio. They mixed the sound for the movie Pi and won awards. It turns out that Sumit knows so many great musicians, some of them played on this CD. He also knows where to order the best South Indian lunches while working.

I am a simple singer, having grown up in Western classical music as a pianist and silver flute player for most of my life until college. Then I studied North Indian classical music, through the dance, and some singing, went to Afghanistan and learned more of that style of singing, and harmonium. At that time, these songs started coming to me. And I have been dancing the whole time.

Through another musical composer, editor and innovator, Michael Stearns, who has helped me in different works over time, I met Kabby Kabakoff. Kabby is a great sound engineer and master of the mix. We recorded a few more songs, with beautiful cellist Jamie Sieber, percussionist Jeff Sussman and zickefoose/guitarist, Sam Armstrong. And then Kabby and I mixed this whole feast.

It is like a patchwork robe. So many stories of each of the songs, to say nothing of the songs themselves. It is an offering of love. I hope you will receive it as such.

—ZULEIKHA

©2020 Zuleikha / Swan Lake Publishing LLC