ABONECRONEDRONE

John:

Well, in the latest CD, the new one, you're really dealing with a microcosm. You've gone from the almost universal aspect of "Weaving My Ancestors Voices" which did just that, trying to weave together the British Isles, the Indian sub-continent. Now you've gone into what's inside a drone. Which is a fascinating concept. One that, you know, certain avant garde composers in the West have taken up over the years but, you've really done something a little bit different here right? You've sort of ....

Sheila:

Well, it's lovely, in reviews in England at the moment, people are quoting all these sources at me. "Have you heard this, have you heard that?" or you know "She must have heard this". And I haven't, I haven't heard any of them. It' just my response to drones really and my response to the question which I found a lot of journalists asking me about where the inspiration for "Weaving" "The Zen Kiss" came from. And I would say they came from the drones and, they would say "Oh no! Surely you know that the gypsies came from North India and moved into Ireland and that's the reason why "Dhyana and Donalogue" works". And I hadn't worked any of that out. It happened, the connections between those vocal cultures happened purely in my voice and really without any intellectual analysis or input from me. So I wanted to prove it in a way, to give people some sense - non-musical people who are not used to listening for the harmonics in things - some sense of what I feel, just before a melody whispers itself into my ear. And in order for that to happen, I have to really feel the potential of things like drones. One has to get into that microcosm world as you say, of the rich tapestry of harmonics. Drones are so deceptive. They appear to be this very flat, boring, monotone of homogenised sound but, if you have the ears to hear it, they are a wonderful rich, diverse tapestry of little vocal sparkles, little, sorry, harmonic sparkles and cyclic rifts, which are ever changing, even if you play the same drone on the same piece of tape ten times and, I really wanted to invoke this sense of being in a kind of cauldron of sound into a melting pot, where there is apparently nothing and yet there is everything.