She drones on

Asian-fusion vocalist Sheila Chandra, who did three albums for Peter Gabriel’s Real World label in the ’90s, has resumed her performing career after a long bout with stage fright and vocal stamina.

“I found I just didn’t have the energy in my voice to meet my own standards,” she told the Los Angeles Daily News. “And I think taking long vacations away from the thing you love is essential to staying on the edge of your own creativity.”

Chandra thinks Western audiences raised on symphonic or chord-based music are starting to get the drone-based music she specializes in.

Drone-based musics, she said, don’t add emotional color to a melodic line by changing tonality underneath, like chord-based music does. The melody — and the listener — has to work harder, but there’s an incredible serenity.

“Isn’t the sound of the blood rushing in your ears a drone? I think our bodies just sigh with relief when we tune into this music. It makes us still,” she said.