I first stumbled upon Shilpa Ray when she was still roaming the circuit with her band “Happy Hookers” in tow. My first Shilpa Ray live experience was nothing short of a religious one at the summer festival event in Leicester. Rarely had I experienced such a combination of power and emotion that Ray spewed that day at a festival that doesn’t even exist anymore. Her newest album takes the dirty, bluesy, cacophonous rock that Ray perfected on previous releases and strips it down, at times, more lucid trajectory. But that rocket ship is still aimed at the sun no matter what speed it’s traveling at and the more ethereal aesthetic of this album just seems to make Ray’s music slightly more unnerving in its honesty and grit. This album is a triumph and how Ray hasn’t already become the darling of the entire indie rock world is absolutely beyond me.
Nobody grows up wanting to be an artist’s artist. Appreciated by the sub sect of other musicians is like being the beauty queen at the leper colony. Shilpa Ray is, through no fault of her own, one of our unsung great artists. Having made her bones with the gothic Sturm und Drang of Beat The Devil and moving forward to the blues erosion of “…and The Happy Hookers” Shilpa Ray has been, armed only with an incomparable voice and harmonium haunted by the ghosts of dead lovers, perpetually crying in the wind, hoisting both middle fingers in the general direction of god. It’s not a life a wise man would choose. Shilpa Ray kicks against the pricks but the pricks keep coming. But, again, what can you do?
The obsessions with sex, death, bodily functions, and betrayal (not necessarily in that order) remain but Shilpa has expanded the palate to convey the resignation, the simmering discontent of an artist disenfranchised and held down. This is a quieter rage than the music Shilpa Ray has made before, more plaintive and considered.
Shilpa Ray has, up till this, point, yes, been an “artist’s artist.” Just about every musician in New York City, who doesn’t hate her, loves her. Nick Cave sings her praises to all with the ears to listen (he brought her along a European tour as an opener and as a backup singer in the States).
The Fat Angel Sings 