ABOUT ARUNA & THE SIRENS

Aruna & The Sirens formed in 2017 on the heels of a 12-hour performance of of “Have You Seen My Sister?” at Nuit Blanche Toronto. Since then, the band has played clubs in Toronto like the Tranzac, the Monarch Tavern and Burdock Music Hall, as well as festivals including Canadian Music Week. The band’s sound is built on Handa’s smoky vocals intertwined with harmonies from the band’s female vocalists, Alejandra Ballon and Caitlin Holland, AKA the Sirens, over a rhythm section featuring upright bass played by Chris Adriaanse, and drum set by Raphael Roter. Guest musicians sit in with the band occasionally, including Doug Tielli (vocals, trombone, guitar), Tzevi Sherman (electric and slide guitar), with surprise guests on the upcoming album. Both Tielli and Sherman play on “City Hotel”, which the band will release in May of 2024, and Tielli plays guitar on the band’s first release, “Have You Seen My Sister?” released in February of 2023. The band’s material, written by Handa, explores what Noam Chomsky calls “Orwell’s question”: ‘why when we know so much, do we do so little?’ Addiction and recovery, the loss of wildlife, gender-based violence, environmental degradation, are explored in a music landscape that spans jazz idioms, folk idioms, crunchy harmonies, country, art song and even a little humour thrown in.

ABOUT THE TRACK “HAVE YOU SEEN MY SISTER?”
RELEASED FEBRUARY 2023

“Have You Seen My Sister?” is based on two songs of Handa’s song cycle of the same name. The track begins with “Corridors of Privilege”, a street march call to action, and ends with a searching call for those who are no longer with us, creating spaces in which to absorb the losses caused by gender-based violence. The track features guest artists like Tennessee-based New York native and multiple Grammy award nominated cellist Dave Eggar, as well as emerging artists like Toronto-based Annika Forman, both of whom responded to Handa’s call to collaborate at the height of the pandemic. “When the papers reported that gender-based violence was surging rather than declining during the lockdowns, (record producer) David (Seitz) and I decided that we wanted to respond.”

“We were able to leverage recent advances in the technology so that musicians in lockdown could contribute tracks despite social distancing,” said David Seitz, record producer on the project.

“We have vocalists on this track ranging in age from 17 to 83 reflecting the truism that all women and girls, regardless of age, are vulnerable,” said Handa while acknowledging that the most marginalized people are the most disproportionately represented on the lists of femicide victims. In Canada and Mexico, Indigenous women and girls are over-represented on the lists. In the US, it’s Black and Latina women. And everywhere BIPOC women, women living in poverty, women living with disabilities are especially vulnerable.

With the Sisters project, Handa and Seitz hope to shine a light on the issue and the need for effective data collection along the UN lines so that meaningful eveidence-based solutions can be tried and tested. “I can imagine a day when gender-based violence is as rare and unheard of as cannibalism.” Handa said. During COVID though, gender-based violence surged according to UN and Canadian numbers.
”We need to get on track with this problem and stop behaving as though it’s intractable,” added Seitz, the father of three daughters.