Known for fusing western and eastern music seamlessly, Leslee (now spelt with an addded ‘e’) Lewis, one half of the lovable duo Colonial Cousins, releases his latest song song Chandrama today.

Chandrama is a prayer that Leslee has composed for his fans and everyone post Covid. He’s asking Lord Ganesha to connect us with Chandrama as in these dark times post Covid, no one can see their way forward. So we need Chandrama to cast some light on our lives. That according to him is the gist of the song.

At first listen, Chandrama has the same texture and melody of his 90s hit song Krishna. He states, “Melodically, both have an Indian classical base, but both are completely different melodies. Texture wise the similarity is dark, slight despair, but there is hope. The main difference between the two songs is that in Krishna I wrote the lyrics in English, whereas in Chandrama I have written the lyrics in Hindi”.

Chandrama is not about any religion. It’s a prayer for humanity. “Personally, I’m not a religious person, just spiritual. My whole life has been about music, and that is spiritual”, adds Lewis

Initially there wasn’t any plan to do such a song, but during the Covid lockdown, Lewis saw what was happening to the future of everyone and came up with this song. He never thought of trying to do something like Krishna. It just turned out that it had the same feel. The entire song has been done by Lewis, from the composing, the lyrics and the instrumentation. Only the mastering was done in the UK, so its pretty much a solo project by him alone.

By Verus Ferreira