Sher ki Awaaz

Sébastien Lacroix and Ajmal Hachemi make up the group Sher ki Awaaz. Sébastien, of French origin, has for the past decade been immersed in North Indian classical music - notably playing the sitar, the dilruba (a type of Indian violin) and the tabla. Ajmal, of Afghan origin, also does percussion which is enriched by the traditional Afghan and Indian music with which he grew up.

Ajmal's and Sébastien's meeting through mutual friends allowed them to create their trad 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 affinity between Ajmal and Sébastien was instant - for they shared a same sense of spatio-temporal 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 Song" or "The Beast'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. For these two, computer programming could be a song of nature, and at the same time organic music a program of the mind.

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.