Clara May aims to be first Desi rock band in America

Chicago’s Clara May appears on Desi Talk cover, Aspires to become America’s first true Desi rock band.

Songwriters Tom Silva, Nicole Sotelo issue latest single – title track from debut “Hush” album available now.

“Hush” is the latest single and title track from the debut album by Clara May

[SOUNDCLOUD]: http://soundcloud.com/fanaticpro/clara-may-hush

[MP3]: http://www.fanaticpromotion.com/projects/claramay/mp3/claramay-hush.mp3


About Clara May

“I would be honored if Clara May were considered the first true Desi rock band in America,” says Tom Silva, a Malaysian-born Indian filmmaker who makes up one half of the Chicago duo. “Among our many voices, I think I am very interested in celebrating my Indian heritage and talking about the issues that affect South Asians through the medium of rock music.”

Silva, along with songwriting partner, Nicole Sotelo, a Harvard-trained theologian and author, recently released the debut album Hush. The album was quickly embraced by Chicago’s Desi community, resulting in the duo being featured on the cover of the city’s Desi Talk newspaper. The article was later picked up nationally by the News India Times. Read the full article here.

The pair has now issued “Hush,” the album’s title track as a single. Silva explains, “I started wanting to write a post-punk British new wave kind of track. I had that opening guitar riff but then took months to come up with the rest. During that time, the song became darker, much more driving -- more Echo and The Bunnymen-like with a grunge kind of grit. It’s a bitter heartbreak song like Beck’s ‘Lost Cause’.”

The album features the duo’s voices backed by some of Chicago’s most adept players, who also bring their own cultural roots to the band. “We wanted to use our combined Indian, Malaysian, Mexican, Chilean, and European backgrounds to create a new kind of American sound,” says Silva.

The Hush album is at once dark, romantic, reflective and emotional, but also comes with a social message that is at the core of Clara May’s work. The songs on Hush explore themes rarely addressed by mainstream music such as the war in Iraq, the genocide in the Congo, colonialism, and cultural identity.

Clara May
Hush
(S/R – Out Now)
Track Listing:
01. Own That Feeling
02. Hush
03. Location of Culture
04. Good Morning
05. The Chosen
06. Away
07. Scrawl
08.Lullaby
09.Hyderabad
10. Diaspora