Mexican-American singer-songwriter Lhasa de Sela passed away in Montreal, Canada on January 1 2010 after succumbing to breast cancer.

Born in Big Indian, New York, in 1972, she spent her childhood living a semi-nomadic life with her family, touring Mexico and the US in a school bus.

Her debut release La Llorona in 1997 was a mix of Latin American, Eastern European Gypsy and alternative rock music, and her strong connection to Mexican music and culture continued on 2003’s The Living Road, which was a Top of the World release in Songlines #23.

Despite her illness, she continued to go into the recording studio, releasing her last album Lhasa in 2009 [reviewed in Songlines #60]. Two concerts in Iceland in May were to be her last and a planned album of the songs of Victor Jara and Violeta Parra will also remain unrealised.

“We have always heard something ancestral coming through her,’ said her old friend Jules Beckman. ‘She has always spoken from the threshold between the worlds, outside of time.’

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Tags: lhasa