(Warner Records)The
Singer spans early 00s hip-hop, ambient tunes and pop bangers in her impressive major-label debut
![Raveena: Asha’s Awakening review – dazzling and eclectic](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e2a6183c0381831a6f324c359816edab67282527/0_565_1365_818/master/1365.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTQucG5n&enable=upscale&s=838022a5b63589e8b8dfb48ac13b526e)
The question of where 27-year-old Raveena Aurora fits in the current pop climate is an interesting one. Her independently released 2019 album Lucid was critically acclaimed, but her major-label debut inches her towards the mainstream, at least in theory – it’s both dazzling and impressively eclectic.
Among the guests lurk not just Vince Staples – on the fantastic, Neptunes-esque Secret – and avant-garde LA singer-songwriter-producer Tweaks, but Asha Puthli. The Bombay-born singer’s extraordinary career takes in everything from collaborating with Ornette Coleman to ethno-fusion, to a brace of revered, idiosyncratic, oft-sampled disco records. Here, Asha’s Kiss feels like Raveena’s loving homage to the dreamy, drowsy atmosphere of Puthli’s mid-70s classics Space Talk and Flying Fish, a mood that predominates in the album’s second half.