Sheila Chandra

Sheila Chandra first came to prominence as a teenage actress on the British teen school soap "Grange Hill" playing the character Sudhamani Patel between 1979 and 1981.



At the same time as she left the series [a=Steve Coe] head of [l=Indipop] was looking for a vocalist for his Asian fusion band [a=Monsoon]. Allegedly he found an old demo tape of Chandra's in a box at [l=Hansa] and was attracted by her rich, fluid voice and South Indian heritage.



Monsoon's debut single, the much sampled "Ever So Lonely", recorded when Chandra was 16, reached #9 in the UK charts in April 1982, but subsequent singles made less impact and she left the group at the end of the year



She subsequently made 4 solo albums with Indipop, before retiring at the age of 20, coming back in 1991 for a 5th solo album "Roots and Wings" for Indipop where she began to expirement with voice tracks laid over drones, a style which set the tone for her work in the 90s



From there, Chandra's association with [a=Real World Records] began as she made 3 remarkable albums, "Weaving My Ancestors Voices" and "Speaking In Tongues" Parts 1 and II, fusing Arab, Andalucian, Celtic and Indian vocal styles with even older traditions such as Gregorian plainsong. She also performed live for 2 years in the 90s, for the first and so far only time in her career



In 1999 Real World released a retrospective of her work "Moonsung" and a retrospective of her Indipop work appeared in 2003