Sher ki Awaaz

Sébastien Lacroix

Geneva

Sébastien Lacroix and Ajmal Hachemi make up the group Sher ki Awaaz. Sébastien, a multi-instrumentalist of French origin, has since 1995 been immersed in North Indian classical music - notably playing the sitar, and the dilruba (a type of Indian violin). Ajmal, of Afghan origin, is a percussion and tabla player who grew up with the traditional Afghan and Indian music. His stays in diverse countries of the globe made him polyglot, added with his affection for Persian and Sufi poems, which inspire his singing. Ajmal's and Sébastien's meeting through mutual friends in 1997 allowed them to create their first traditional Indo-Afghan ensemble. While Sébastien composed music for electro-psychedelic, gothic and ambient style groups in the Geneva area, Ajmal was working with pop and folk Afghan musicians. Upon teaming up, they discovered their common passion for electronic music. Not wanting to lose their (original and adopted) cultures however, a simple solution was found : to live with the times and to adopt their "cyber-ethnicity". The first compositions were created by this core at the dawn of the 2000's. The affinity between Ajmal and Sébastien was instant - for they shared a same sense of spatiotemporal trips : in that there were musical boundaries to be pushed and new emotional frontiers to be established. In Hindi, Sher ki Awaaz translates as "The Tiger's Voice". To them, the material used to make their traditional instruments, such as wood, metal, leather and clay, are as essential and natural as the electricity and silicon within computers. What counts is unity in diversity. With this, Sher ki Awaaz hope to stay firmly planted on solid ground while their heads fly high in the cosmic storms. In our time of cyberspace and limitless travel, they provide us a positive continuity between ancient heritage, the free choice of one's culture and the future.