Since Raveena Aurora first emerged in 2017, the New York-based singer-songwriter’s sound has been imbued with an entrancing soft soulfulness. Predominantly creating in the realm of R&B, with nods to her Indian heritage have so far mainly been in the aesthetics – self-directed videos in which she and her peers drip in traditional gold jewellery. Her impressive debut album, 2019’s Lucid, explored family history, trauma, spirituality and relationships, largely over more standard R&B and neo-soul-type instrumentation, occasionally veering into more psych-tinged, Alice Coltrane-esque celestial harps.
On Asha’s Awakening, Raveena’s new album (her first on a major label), the 27-year-old’s direction feels more outward-looking, burrowing into her south Asian roots in bold, fantastical, high-concept fashion. Asha, we are told, is a space princess from ancient Punjab who is adventuring through the centuries, singing of love, loss and fate. The album plays with Bollywood film music stylings: shimmying trills of tabla rhythms, pitchy twangs of guitar, colourful smatterings of electronics, coy new age-y lyrics (“I can open up your third eye”) and Raveena occasionally singing in breathy, silky Hindi.
Features from rapper Vince Staples and Asha Puthli, a cult Indian singer-songwriter experimentalist, are testament to how vast Raveena’s world can be. She has always been a pleasure to listen to, but her charm and talent on this fully formed new release are undeniable, threading past and present into her own glorious, cosmic future.
• Asha’s Awakening is out now on Warner
