Indio Saravanja
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Indio Saravanja

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada | INDIE

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada | INDIE
Band Folk Singer/Songwriter

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"Penguin Eggs Review"

Penguin Eggs Folk Magazine Review-Spring 2006

by Richard Thornley

Canada grows roots-rockers like our yards do dandelions- prolifically. Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, and 54 40 are some of the familiar names but there are plenty more recent proponents of a back to basics sound as well: folks like Dave McCann, Rodney DeCroo, John Wort Hannam, and the list goes on. Indio Saravanja is just the latest in this lineage, with a smoky voice and songs both poignant and poetic. On 'Northern Town' he tells a tale of returning home after a time in the big city and 'Burn The Ships' exhorts us to truly live our lives. 'First Communion' is a nice little rocker that tells the sadly affecting story of a native Canadian woman.
Unfortunately, aside from these and a couple other standout tracks, about half the record falls a little flat and I'm left wondering if Indio has yet to find his own voice--a case of too many influences, not enough Indio. Still, there's tons of potential here and this is one dandelion that's truly welcome in the garden. - Penguin Eggs Folk Magazine


"Penguin Eggs Review"

Penguin Eggs Folk Magazine Review-Spring 2006

by Richard Thornley

Canada grows roots-rockers like our yards do dandelions- prolifically. Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, and 54 40 are some of the familiar names but there are plenty more recent proponents of a back to basics sound as well: folks like Dave McCann, Rodney DeCroo, John Wort Hannam, and the list goes on. Indio Saravanja is just the latest in this lineage, with a smoky voice and songs both poignant and poetic. On 'Northern Town' he tells a tale of returning home after a time in the big city and 'Burn The Ships' exhorts us to truly live our lives. 'First Communion' is a nice little rocker that tells the sadly affecting story of a native Canadian woman.
Unfortunately, aside from these and a couple other standout tracks, about half the record falls a little flat and I'm left wondering if Indio has yet to find his own voice--a case of too many influences, not enough Indio. Still, there's tons of potential here and this is one dandelion that's truly welcome in the garden. - Penguin Eggs Folk Magazine


"Indio Is So Good, So Quick"

Indio Is So Good, So Quick

WHATSUPYUKON Magazine December 9, 2005
Audio Borealis with David Gilmour

I have encountered a young musician whose lyrics show a depth that shouldn't be there.....considering his youth. Indio Saravanja is a talent to watch.
For the lyrics alone, this self-titled CD is one that might foreshadow the possibilities for this soulful son.
Maybe he's a beat poet that wound up in a later generation. Certainly his songs reflect the 'loner on the road looking for meaning' theme that cropped up in literature, theatre and song during that transition from the golden 50s into the turbulent 60's. One writer who came to mind while listening to these 11 tunes was John Steinbeck.
Actually, a few other writers also came to mind: Bob Dylan for one, and Bruce Springsteen for another....pretty high company for such a young man.
While not every song is a total winner, every song has something to it to catch the ear and mind.
Most of the songs are fairly minimal in the instrumentation. The Long Way has only an acoustic guitar and bass while World Of Frost (I'm Leaving) has all of seven instruments. Even when this many instruments are being used, one finds almost all the instruments are there to let the vocals rise to the fore. The percussion is simple. No great cymbal crashes.
The organ on 'Til the Sun Shines is a great example of understated cohesion. It helps weld together the foundation that once again lets the lyrics soar.
The slide guitar on this track, by the late Aylie Sparkes, is also a good example of this as well. Simple and haunting, it is an excellent arm to hold up the vocals. Never obtrusive, but perfectly counter pointed for the vocals.
Lonnie Powell does the drum work and, with the exception of 2 tracks, Pat Braden supplies the bass.
Other fine folk to help out are Annie Avery on organ, Gene Brown on pedal steel, Moritz Behm on violin and Bob Hamilton on a variety of instruments.
Indio is also a multi instrumentalist himself. He provides acoustic guitar, harmonica, harmonium, piano, mock mellotron and bass.
While the instruments and production seem just what the doctor ordered, it's the lyrics that really put this CD over the top. Indio rarely uses a chorus in these songs. They are just more stories that happen to have a melody.
Conman, in particular, struck me as a very personal song that held great truths. And by this I mean truths that many of us have but, will not bring to the light of day. Painful truths that are not easy to admit. Being human. Being wrong. Being less than we want or hope.
How a young soul as this has found them and can express them so well is beyond me. I've been trying for decades and have never come near to this sage.
When it comes to voice quality, Indio has a voice that also seems to have a depth of experience. It also has an echo of Bob Dylan in its delivery. Right from the first track, I kept hearing echoes of both Dylan and Springsteen in the vocals.
I also heard echoes of these two legends in his lyrics. I must admit to a slight pang of jealousy when i finished listening to this CD. How did this young, green kid get so good so quick. Maybe it was talent combined with hard work.
In closing, I can only say, remember the name Indio Saravanja and watch to see where the journey takes him. - Yukon News


"Indio Is So Good, So Quick"

Indio Is So Good, So Quick

WHATSUPYUKON Magazine December 9, 2005
Audio Borealis with David Gilmour

I have encountered a young musician whose lyrics show a depth that shouldn't be there.....considering his youth. Indio Saravanja is a talent to watch.
For the lyrics alone, this self-titled CD is one that might foreshadow the possibilities for this soulful son.
Maybe he's a beat poet that wound up in a later generation. Certainly his songs reflect the 'loner on the road looking for meaning' theme that cropped up in literature, theatre and song during that transition from the golden 50s into the turbulent 60's. One writer who came to mind while listening to these 11 tunes was John Steinbeck.
Actually, a few other writers also came to mind: Bob Dylan for one, and Bruce Springsteen for another....pretty high company for such a young man.
While not every song is a total winner, every song has something to it to catch the ear and mind.
Most of the songs are fairly minimal in the instrumentation. The Long Way has only an acoustic guitar and bass while World Of Frost (I'm Leaving) has all of seven instruments. Even when this many instruments are being used, one finds almost all the instruments are there to let the vocals rise to the fore. The percussion is simple. No great cymbal crashes.
The organ on 'Til the Sun Shines is a great example of understated cohesion. It helps weld together the foundation that once again lets the lyrics soar.
The slide guitar on this track, by the late Aylie Sparkes, is also a good example of this as well. Simple and haunting, it is an excellent arm to hold up the vocals. Never obtrusive, but perfectly counter pointed for the vocals.
Lonnie Powell does the drum work and, with the exception of 2 tracks, Pat Braden supplies the bass.
Other fine folk to help out are Annie Avery on organ, Gene Brown on pedal steel, Moritz Behm on violin and Bob Hamilton on a variety of instruments.
Indio is also a multi instrumentalist himself. He provides acoustic guitar, harmonica, harmonium, piano, mock mellotron and bass.
While the instruments and production seem just what the doctor ordered, it's the lyrics that really put this CD over the top. Indio rarely uses a chorus in these songs. They are just more stories that happen to have a melody.
Conman, in particular, struck me as a very personal song that held great truths. And by this I mean truths that many of us have but, will not bring to the light of day. Painful truths that are not easy to admit. Being human. Being wrong. Being less than we want or hope.
How a young soul as this has found them and can express them so well is beyond me. I've been trying for decades and have never come near to this sage.
When it comes to voice quality, Indio has a voice that also seems to have a depth of experience. It also has an echo of Bob Dylan in its delivery. Right from the first track, I kept hearing echoes of both Dylan and Springsteen in the vocals.
I also heard echoes of these two legends in his lyrics. I must admit to a slight pang of jealousy when i finished listening to this CD. How did this young, green kid get so good so quick. Maybe it was talent combined with hard work.
In closing, I can only say, remember the name Indio Saravanja and watch to see where the journey takes him. - Yukon News


"Toronto Star Review"

Toronto Star Review

The roots music community in Whitehorse is surprisingly large and diverse, thanks primarily to the efforts of David Petkovich and Bob Hamilton, co-owners of the Yukon-centric independent label Caribou Records, which is home to well-known northern Canadian folk artists Kim Barlow, Kim Beggs, Anne Louise Genest and the now defunct Undertakin' Daddies.

Caribou's latest find, 20something songwriter Indio Saravanja, is Argentine by birth and a wanderer by nature. His meandering trail has led him across the country, from Montreal to Yellowknife, via Toronto, New York and the American southwest, and while his delivery is perhaps burdened by too many Dylanesque and Reedish vocal inflections, he proves on his eponymous debut - assembled in Whitehorse by prodigious producer/multi-instrumentalist Hamilton and a crack crew of local musicians - that he is a poet of the finest water, a keen observer with finely attuned literary sensibilities and a thinker of considerable substance.

His songs capture the sensations of a life in flux, the kind of excitement only surefooted forward movement offers, and while his vivid reflections on the beautiful and brutal realities of existence in the far north suggest contentment with such magnificent isolation, Saravanja is clearly connected to the larger contemporary global zeitgeist. Big things are coming his way. - The Toronto Star


"Toronto Star Review"

Toronto Star Review

The roots music community in Whitehorse is surprisingly large and diverse, thanks primarily to the efforts of David Petkovich and Bob Hamilton, co-owners of the Yukon-centric independent label Caribou Records, which is home to well-known northern Canadian folk artists Kim Barlow, Kim Beggs, Anne Louise Genest and the now defunct Undertakin' Daddies.

Caribou's latest find, 20something songwriter Indio Saravanja, is Argentine by birth and a wanderer by nature. His meandering trail has led him across the country, from Montreal to Yellowknife, via Toronto, New York and the American southwest, and while his delivery is perhaps burdened by too many Dylanesque and Reedish vocal inflections, he proves on his eponymous debut - assembled in Whitehorse by prodigious producer/multi-instrumentalist Hamilton and a crack crew of local musicians - that he is a poet of the finest water, a keen observer with finely attuned literary sensibilities and a thinker of considerable substance.

His songs capture the sensations of a life in flux, the kind of excitement only surefooted forward movement offers, and while his vivid reflections on the beautiful and brutal realities of existence in the far north suggest contentment with such magnificent isolation, Saravanja is clearly connected to the larger contemporary global zeitgeist. Big things are coming his way. - The Toronto Star


"Exclaim Cd Review"

Exclaim! CD Review

By Rachel Sanders
June 25, 2006

Argentinian-born, Yellowknife-raised Indio Saravanja is a consummate lyricist with a powerful conscience and a keen eye for the world’s follies. Ten years on the road after a stint in New York under the mentorship of the late Jeff Buckley gave Saravanja time and opportunity to hone his songwriting along with a sense of self-assuredness rarely found on a debut recording. The culmination of his travels is this collection of compelling and perfectly crafted folk rock songs. The timelessness of his sound — unpretentious guitar lines with garnishes of fiddle, harmonium and wheedling Wurlitzer — is offset by contemporary subject matter peppered with numerous references to whiskey and epic Canadian snowstorms. An archetypal folk rockster, Saravanja takes a long, unflinching look at modern issues — from addiction, to our immoral wars, to the enduring effects of residential schools on the Native population — with a sensibility that is biting without ever slipping into bitterness. - Exclaim Magazine


"Exclaim Cd Review"

Exclaim! CD Review

By Rachel Sanders
June 25, 2006

Argentinian-born, Yellowknife-raised Indio Saravanja is a consummate lyricist with a powerful conscience and a keen eye for the world’s follies. Ten years on the road after a stint in New York under the mentorship of the late Jeff Buckley gave Saravanja time and opportunity to hone his songwriting along with a sense of self-assuredness rarely found on a debut recording. The culmination of his travels is this collection of compelling and perfectly crafted folk rock songs. The timelessness of his sound — unpretentious guitar lines with garnishes of fiddle, harmonium and wheedling Wurlitzer — is offset by contemporary subject matter peppered with numerous references to whiskey and epic Canadian snowstorms. An archetypal folk rockster, Saravanja takes a long, unflinching look at modern issues — from addiction, to our immoral wars, to the enduring effects of residential schools on the Native population — with a sensibility that is biting without ever slipping into bitterness. - Exclaim Magazine


"Saravanja discovers himself and his music"


Saravanja discovers himself and his music - The Leader Post

The Leader Post - Regina, SK - Daily - 04.18.2006 - FEATURE

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/arts_life/story.html?id=d29c16d4-1432-4edb-aad9-de3ac0220d8f

Saravanja discovers himself and his music

Andrew Matte, The Leader-Post
Published: Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Indio Saravanja
(with Gordie Tentrees Band)
Today, 8 p.m.
The Exchange

- - -
Singer-songwriter Indio Saravanja is appropriately perplexed when people he meets seem most interested in his birthplace.

Yes, he was born in Argentina. He moved to Canada as a youngster, but he wonders why, of all the unique things about his life, that his place of birth seems more interesting than it is.

"I have no idea why people keep harping on it. I mean, aren't a lot of people in Canada from other places? I keep getting the same questions from people. It's weird."

This 33-year-old displaced South American has a point.

His move to Canada was just the beginning of his globe-trotting. He lived in the Yukon as a youngster before he left home, striking out on his own at the age of 13.

He quit school and yearned to travel, spending time in places like Spain, Montreal, New York City, Victoria and places in between, while slowly learning how to pluck the strings of an acoustic guitar so that he could busk on big-city street corners to earn his keep. It didn't take him long to learn "hundreds of songs," an accomplishment that made him a successful busker, which also facilitated the lifestyle of a vagabond minstrel.

"When I was 13, I got my first guitar. And then I became obsessed with learning other peoples' songs," he says. "By the time I was 15 or so, I was quite an entertainer. I knew hundreds of songs, so that's when I started busking.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be in the Beatles. I wanted to be Elvis. I wanted to be a movie star.

"But, for instance, when I was living on the East Coast, I'd just go to Toronto for a week and busk and bum around. It was great."

Through much of his 20s, he worked as a musician in bar bands, performing pop, country, blues and just about everything else, while writing his own music to offset his growing disdain for playing music written by others.

"I lived in bars for eight years. I had this double life. I was writing songs like crazy during the day and at night I was playing other people's music. I was doing it well, but I was hating it," he says.

That led to a difficult but educational trek to New York where he learned living his dream was harder to realize than planning it.

"I told myself that I was going to move to New York just like Bob Dylan did and I'm going to be the next Bob Dylan," he says.

"That was a long time ago, and a lot of shit happened. I got my ass kicked, I'll tell you that."

Over time, he found the confidence he never had before. A record label in Whitehorse offered to help him record and release his first CD, and he now finds himself touring the country performing his own songs, something he never thought he'd manage a decade ago.

"I never believed in myself, and I never believed in popular music," he says.

"I wanted to be a poet. I wanted to get deeper. But I didn't have the goods. I could write cute songs and I was a cute performer and all that. But I knew it would take 10 years to get where I wanted to be.

"Even today, I have no idea how to get up on stage and play my own music, but I suppose that it's all coming together now.

"Confidence just comes with getting older and not giving a shit. I think it's about love and finding out how to love yourself and stop doing mean things to yourself."

With all of this maturity, he also finds that he's less eager to traipse the globe.

"I am slowing down a little bit. I use to move every three months. Now I'm moving every two years," he says.

"After 20 years, you keep thinking that someday you want a home. But every time you think you're getting near to that, you feel like maybe you don't know how to do it." - The Leader Post- Regina Saskatchewan


"Saravanja discovers himself and his music"


Saravanja discovers himself and his music - The Leader Post

The Leader Post - Regina, SK - Daily - 04.18.2006 - FEATURE

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/arts_life/story.html?id=d29c16d4-1432-4edb-aad9-de3ac0220d8f

Saravanja discovers himself and his music

Andrew Matte, The Leader-Post
Published: Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Indio Saravanja
(with Gordie Tentrees Band)
Today, 8 p.m.
The Exchange

- - -
Singer-songwriter Indio Saravanja is appropriately perplexed when people he meets seem most interested in his birthplace.

Yes, he was born in Argentina. He moved to Canada as a youngster, but he wonders why, of all the unique things about his life, that his place of birth seems more interesting than it is.

"I have no idea why people keep harping on it. I mean, aren't a lot of people in Canada from other places? I keep getting the same questions from people. It's weird."

This 33-year-old displaced South American has a point.

His move to Canada was just the beginning of his globe-trotting. He lived in the Yukon as a youngster before he left home, striking out on his own at the age of 13.

He quit school and yearned to travel, spending time in places like Spain, Montreal, New York City, Victoria and places in between, while slowly learning how to pluck the strings of an acoustic guitar so that he could busk on big-city street corners to earn his keep. It didn't take him long to learn "hundreds of songs," an accomplishment that made him a successful busker, which also facilitated the lifestyle of a vagabond minstrel.

"When I was 13, I got my first guitar. And then I became obsessed with learning other peoples' songs," he says. "By the time I was 15 or so, I was quite an entertainer. I knew hundreds of songs, so that's when I started busking.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be in the Beatles. I wanted to be Elvis. I wanted to be a movie star.

"But, for instance, when I was living on the East Coast, I'd just go to Toronto for a week and busk and bum around. It was great."

Through much of his 20s, he worked as a musician in bar bands, performing pop, country, blues and just about everything else, while writing his own music to offset his growing disdain for playing music written by others.

"I lived in bars for eight years. I had this double life. I was writing songs like crazy during the day and at night I was playing other people's music. I was doing it well, but I was hating it," he says.

That led to a difficult but educational trek to New York where he learned living his dream was harder to realize than planning it.

"I told myself that I was going to move to New York just like Bob Dylan did and I'm going to be the next Bob Dylan," he says.

"That was a long time ago, and a lot of shit happened. I got my ass kicked, I'll tell you that."

Over time, he found the confidence he never had before. A record label in Whitehorse offered to help him record and release his first CD, and he now finds himself touring the country performing his own songs, something he never thought he'd manage a decade ago.

"I never believed in myself, and I never believed in popular music," he says.

"I wanted to be a poet. I wanted to get deeper. But I didn't have the goods. I could write cute songs and I was a cute performer and all that. But I knew it would take 10 years to get where I wanted to be.

"Even today, I have no idea how to get up on stage and play my own music, but I suppose that it's all coming together now.

"Confidence just comes with getting older and not giving a shit. I think it's about love and finding out how to love yourself and stop doing mean things to yourself."

With all of this maturity, he also finds that he's less eager to traipse the globe.

"I am slowing down a little bit. I use to move every three months. Now I'm moving every two years," he says.

"After 20 years, you keep thinking that someday you want a home. But every time you think you're getting near to that, you feel like maybe you don't know how to do it." - The Leader Post- Regina Saskatchewan


"Feature"

Post details: The Star Phoenix - Saskatoon, SK

07/15/06

02:45:03 am, Categories: Article, 591 words
The Star Phoenix - Saskatoon, SK

The Star Phoenix - Saskatoon, SK - Daily - 04.20.2006 - FEATURE

Saravanja feels the ups and downs on latest tour
Folksinger rewarded in unexpected places

By Cam Fuller of The Star Phoenix

Having driven through a spring blizzard in a hiccuping van, Indio Saravanja was a little tired and testy. But, like the honest music he writes, he’s not one to gild the lily.

“We had a bad week,’’ he says, trying to coax more than 50 km/h out of the Volkswagen.

Saravanja and Gordie Tentrees are 10 days into their 30.30 Tour — 30 towns in 30 days over 10,000 kilometers from Toronto to Whitehorse. They play Lydia’s tonight.

The trip has not been without highlights. One was Saravanja’s brother showing him a picture of Kris Kristofferson holding Saravanja’s new album. But it’s a little discouraging when the crowds are small. A couple of gigs organized by folk festivals didn’t exactly have festive feelings.

“In both cases the only people who showed up were board members,” he says.

Saravanja is asked if the 30-30 idea was a little over-ambitious, but he doesn’t take the bait. If there’s anything he’s used to, it’s travel. His parents moved to Montreal from Argentina when he was three, then to Yellowknife where he lived until he hit his teens. Then it was Montreal, Spain and New York.

He lived out of a knapsack, busked to keep hunger at bay and didn’t have a care in the world. An early contact and influence, highlighted in his official bio, was Jeff Buckley, the influential musician who drowned in 1997. The record label insisted on mentioning that link, despite Saravanja’s misgivings. Sure enough, every interviewer wants to hear about it. Saravanja doesn’t want to comment now — reluctant, it seems, to trade his loyalty to a friend for quotes and sound bites. His feelings are set down in the song Other Side: Sometimes I feel sorry for you/I know you’d only just begun/You got the Glory and I got the view/Of the things we left undone.

Saravanja writes classic folk and sings like a perfect amalgam of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Tom Petty. If there’s anything he’s bad at it’s timing. He arrived in Greenwich Village in 1990 expecting to find the same folk scene of the ’60s.

“I’ve felt totally out of time and out of touch my whole life,” he says.

He was in his 20s and ended up playing in cover bands for a decade and hating it. Now 33, he loves playing his own music. But he wishes he started doing it years ago. And it’s a struggle.

“I made more money 10 years ago doing covers than I do today,’’ he says.

Rewards come in unexpected places. After a well-attended theatre show, a couple of teenage boys came backstage to meet him. He couldn’t believe these shy kids in their Eminem T-shirts were digging his stuff.

“They were just amazed. ‘How do you do that, man? How do you write like that? How do you play like that?’ they wanted to know. “I was blown away.”

Saravanja often writes songs about seeking refuge, trying to find home, something to hold on to. After his many travels, he’s relatively settled on Galiano Island in B.C. But will the woman there be enough to keep him grounded? He can’t say for sure.

“I’ve tried many times. I guess. I don’t know. It’s not up to me. I don’t know.” - The Star Phoenix-Saskatoon


"Feature"

Post details: The Star Phoenix - Saskatoon, SK

07/15/06

02:45:03 am, Categories: Article, 591 words
The Star Phoenix - Saskatoon, SK

The Star Phoenix - Saskatoon, SK - Daily - 04.20.2006 - FEATURE

Saravanja feels the ups and downs on latest tour
Folksinger rewarded in unexpected places

By Cam Fuller of The Star Phoenix

Having driven through a spring blizzard in a hiccuping van, Indio Saravanja was a little tired and testy. But, like the honest music he writes, he’s not one to gild the lily.

“We had a bad week,’’ he says, trying to coax more than 50 km/h out of the Volkswagen.

Saravanja and Gordie Tentrees are 10 days into their 30.30 Tour — 30 towns in 30 days over 10,000 kilometers from Toronto to Whitehorse. They play Lydia’s tonight.

The trip has not been without highlights. One was Saravanja’s brother showing him a picture of Kris Kristofferson holding Saravanja’s new album. But it’s a little discouraging when the crowds are small. A couple of gigs organized by folk festivals didn’t exactly have festive feelings.

“In both cases the only people who showed up were board members,” he says.

Saravanja is asked if the 30-30 idea was a little over-ambitious, but he doesn’t take the bait. If there’s anything he’s used to, it’s travel. His parents moved to Montreal from Argentina when he was three, then to Yellowknife where he lived until he hit his teens. Then it was Montreal, Spain and New York.

He lived out of a knapsack, busked to keep hunger at bay and didn’t have a care in the world. An early contact and influence, highlighted in his official bio, was Jeff Buckley, the influential musician who drowned in 1997. The record label insisted on mentioning that link, despite Saravanja’s misgivings. Sure enough, every interviewer wants to hear about it. Saravanja doesn’t want to comment now — reluctant, it seems, to trade his loyalty to a friend for quotes and sound bites. His feelings are set down in the song Other Side: Sometimes I feel sorry for you/I know you’d only just begun/You got the Glory and I got the view/Of the things we left undone.

Saravanja writes classic folk and sings like a perfect amalgam of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Tom Petty. If there’s anything he’s bad at it’s timing. He arrived in Greenwich Village in 1990 expecting to find the same folk scene of the ’60s.

“I’ve felt totally out of time and out of touch my whole life,” he says.

He was in his 20s and ended up playing in cover bands for a decade and hating it. Now 33, he loves playing his own music. But he wishes he started doing it years ago. And it’s a struggle.

“I made more money 10 years ago doing covers than I do today,’’ he says.

Rewards come in unexpected places. After a well-attended theatre show, a couple of teenage boys came backstage to meet him. He couldn’t believe these shy kids in their Eminem T-shirts were digging his stuff.

“They were just amazed. ‘How do you do that, man? How do you write like that? How do you play like that?’ they wanted to know. “I was blown away.”

Saravanja often writes songs about seeking refuge, trying to find home, something to hold on to. After his many travels, he’s relatively settled on Galiano Island in B.C. But will the woman there be enough to keep him grounded? He can’t say for sure.

“I’ve tried many times. I guess. I don’t know. It’s not up to me. I don’t know.” - The Star Phoenix-Saskatoon


"Saravanja confident with Folk Identity"


Saravanja Confident With Folk Identity - Times Victoria

Times Colonist - Victoria, BC - Daily - April 29, 2006 - FEATURE

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/arts/story.html?id=d6ab1626-ed32-4c30-8b23-31b11c88a5c7&k=57608

Saravanja confident with folk identity

Mike Devlin, Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, April 29, 2006

PREVIEW

Who: Gordie Tentrees

with Indio Saravanja

Where: Spiral Cafe

(418 Craigflower Rd.)

When: Tuesday, 8 p.m.

Tickets: $10 at the door

- - -

Indio Saravanja's current tour has put him back on the Trans-Canada Highway, a stretch of road the native of Argentina knows incredibly well.

Saravanja has performed pretty much everywhere in Canada, and has lived in Toronto, Montreal and Yellowknife, among other cities, after leaving home at 13.

His constant travelling came to an end three years ago when he settled on Galiano Island, where he now lives with his girlfriend. The laid-back locale has seemingly cured the singer-songwriter of his vagabond ways.

"The last three years of my life have been pretty stable," Saravanja said over a cellphone as he travelled to Lethbridge, Alta. "I don't see myself going anywhere. I've run out of imagination. I've been everywhere I wanted to be; now I'm kind of comfortable."

Saravanja, 33, has spent a good deal of time in Victoria over the years as well. His mother, who had muscular dystrophy and died in October, spent her last 12 years in Victoria, many of those with her son by her side. No matter where he was living at the time, Saravanja would move and spend four months each year in Victoria caring for her.

The respite gave him ample time to hone his own songs, and while he quickly became friends with some of the city's most notable musicians -- including Daniel Lapp, Carolyn Mark, Dan Weisenburger and Leeroy Stagger -- he turned down more than a few gigs locally.

"It was my vacation spot," said Saravanja, who for eight years performed six nights a week in a bar band that played mostly cover songs. "It was my spot to hang out and not play, because I was playing the rest of the year non-stop."

He plays his own music now, and the material on his self-titled debut is an assured batch of folk that is reminiscent of early Bob Dylan.

Perhaps that's not surprising: Saravanja has done two stints as a resident of New York, one as a coffee barista in the East Village neighbourhood often associated with Dylan, Joan Baez and beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg. "It was no big deal for a David Byrne to come in for breakfast," he said of the coffee house, where he also served Ginsberg and punk poet Lydia Lunch. "The whole bohemian thing was still very much alive. You could get an apartment for $300."

That changed quickly. "When I moved back there in 1999, those same rooms were more like $1,200 a month."

It was during his first New York tour of duty that he began to find his voice as a songwriter, inspired by his close friend, another fellow transplant New Yorker, the late Jeff Buckley.

Saravanja's memories of New York reflect a shift in his creative focus.

"When I was in New York, I wanted to be a rock star. But I sabotaged any chance I had of doing that. I don't know if that was inner wisdom I didn't even know was there, or fate. I was way too insecure and way too scared of everything, but at the same time I knew I wanted depth to my writing that just wasn't there yet."

Now that he has finally found the confidence to record his own material, he plans on remaining in one place.

"If I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing -- which is touring the hell out of this record -- it almost won't matter where I live."

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006 - Times Colonist-Victoria, BC


"Saravanja confident with Folk Identity"


Saravanja Confident With Folk Identity - Times Victoria

Times Colonist - Victoria, BC - Daily - April 29, 2006 - FEATURE

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/arts/story.html?id=d6ab1626-ed32-4c30-8b23-31b11c88a5c7&k=57608

Saravanja confident with folk identity

Mike Devlin, Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, April 29, 2006

PREVIEW

Who: Gordie Tentrees

with Indio Saravanja

Where: Spiral Cafe

(418 Craigflower Rd.)

When: Tuesday, 8 p.m.

Tickets: $10 at the door

- - -

Indio Saravanja's current tour has put him back on the Trans-Canada Highway, a stretch of road the native of Argentina knows incredibly well.

Saravanja has performed pretty much everywhere in Canada, and has lived in Toronto, Montreal and Yellowknife, among other cities, after leaving home at 13.

His constant travelling came to an end three years ago when he settled on Galiano Island, where he now lives with his girlfriend. The laid-back locale has seemingly cured the singer-songwriter of his vagabond ways.

"The last three years of my life have been pretty stable," Saravanja said over a cellphone as he travelled to Lethbridge, Alta. "I don't see myself going anywhere. I've run out of imagination. I've been everywhere I wanted to be; now I'm kind of comfortable."

Saravanja, 33, has spent a good deal of time in Victoria over the years as well. His mother, who had muscular dystrophy and died in October, spent her last 12 years in Victoria, many of those with her son by her side. No matter where he was living at the time, Saravanja would move and spend four months each year in Victoria caring for her.

The respite gave him ample time to hone his own songs, and while he quickly became friends with some of the city's most notable musicians -- including Daniel Lapp, Carolyn Mark, Dan Weisenburger and Leeroy Stagger -- he turned down more than a few gigs locally.

"It was my vacation spot," said Saravanja, who for eight years performed six nights a week in a bar band that played mostly cover songs. "It was my spot to hang out and not play, because I was playing the rest of the year non-stop."

He plays his own music now, and the material on his self-titled debut is an assured batch of folk that is reminiscent of early Bob Dylan.

Perhaps that's not surprising: Saravanja has done two stints as a resident of New York, one as a coffee barista in the East Village neighbourhood often associated with Dylan, Joan Baez and beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg. "It was no big deal for a David Byrne to come in for breakfast," he said of the coffee house, where he also served Ginsberg and punk poet Lydia Lunch. "The whole bohemian thing was still very much alive. You could get an apartment for $300."

That changed quickly. "When I moved back there in 1999, those same rooms were more like $1,200 a month."

It was during his first New York tour of duty that he began to find his voice as a songwriter, inspired by his close friend, another fellow transplant New Yorker, the late Jeff Buckley.

Saravanja's memories of New York reflect a shift in his creative focus.

"When I was in New York, I wanted to be a rock star. But I sabotaged any chance I had of doing that. I don't know if that was inner wisdom I didn't even know was there, or fate. I was way too insecure and way too scared of everything, but at the same time I knew I wanted depth to my writing that just wasn't there yet."

Now that he has finally found the confidence to record his own material, he plans on remaining in one place.

"If I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing -- which is touring the hell out of this record -- it almost won't matter where I live."

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006 - Times Colonist-Victoria, BC


"Where The Heart of Music Is"

Post details: Where The Heart of Music Is - Toronto Star

07/15/06

02:21:20 am, Categories: Article, 1332 words
Where The Heart of Music Is - Toronto Star

Entertainment

ROOTS

Where the heart of music is;
Wherever they roam, these rising stars call a cabin near Whitehorse home.

By Greg Quill

Toronto Star
1404 words
2 April 2006
The Toronto Star
Page C12
Copyright (c) 2006 The Toronto Star

WHITEHORSE -- In this overpowering, moonlit wilderness in the middle of winter, about 50 kilometres north of the Yukon capital, a couple of sheepdogs play like children in the fresh snow piled deep in the clearing around a spacious, handmade log cabin set back from the Alaska Highway and concealed in a forest of thick, towering firs.

They gnaw occasionally on the shinbone of a moose, the slowly braised haunch of which is the centrepiece of a massive buffet inside. It's cold out here, but not uncomfortable, nothing like the -50C of winters past, mutters Yukon songwriter and troubadour Indio Saravanja.

His quiet voice trails away like fog over the porch steps and into the night. He laughs at the antics of the dogs. Music is in the air. Silver light floods the valley and glows off snowcapped mountains on the circling horizon.

This is Saravanja's favourite place. He comes here if he's in Whitehorse on the one Sunday every month when the town's musical community gathers inside, under these high cathedral ceilings, to sing and play and eat.

But he won't be there this weekend. Saravanja and Yukon buddy, songwriter Gordie Tentrees, are embarking, after a two-hander concert at Toronto's Tranzac Club Saturday night, on a month-long road trip across the country. Thirty gigs in 30 days, from here all the way back to Whitehorse, back to that cabin in the woods.

The cabin - and various log outhouses, including a woodshed, a workshop, a guest cottage and a bear-proof food store atop 10-metre-long tree trunks - were built by Pete and Mary (just Pete and Mary, no surnames), two Americans who went bush in the 1970s and made a good living as line trappers, raising their daughter in the bush till she required "socializing" at age 12, at which time they bought a small house in nearby Mayo for the summertime off-seasons. She's now 31, lives in Vancouver with her husband and child, and works for a provincial environmental agency.

Despite their years without other human company, Pete and Mary are generous, hospitable, gregarious people; well-educated, wonderful musicians with an exceptionally civilized sense of social intercourse.

Like almost everyone you meet in Whitehorse, they come from somewhere else, and succumbed in a very short time to the peculiar charm of the Yukon - the isolation, the tight communal bonds, the creative, do-it-yourself spirit, the certain knowledge that here you can truly reinvent yourself, exorcise your demons, dump your back story and "grow a better self," as Tentrees likes to say of the town he adopted 8 years ago. He teaches remedial studies for most of the year, raises his young family, writes, records and spends "20 hours a week on the computer planning my next musical move."

Once a month, Pete and Mary host a Sunday afternoon gathering like this one, he says, open to all the musicians in town, and put out a feast. Today, in the dark that settled around 3: 30 p.m. after a short five hours of sunlight, it's moose stew, elk steaks, venison meatballs in tomato sauce, ratatouille, carrots, mashed garlic potatoes, their own bread, cakes and cookies, all made on a huge wood stove at one end of the cabin, as well as cheese, cold cuts and great wine.

There are 40 or 50 people at the other end of the sprawling, wood fire-warmed room - on sofas and benches covered with Navajo rugs and fur throws - playing guitars, mandolins, a dobro or two, a piano, lap steel, harmonica, standup bass, and singing amazing harmonies. Old songs, new songs, their own songs. They're all concert-level pickers and songwriters, who pick up within a couple of bars everything that bubbles up in the musical pot. Gentle folkies.

"This is the way we live up here," Saravanja says on Pete's and Mary's front porch. Based now in B.C.'s Gulf Islands, he sees Whitehorse as his beginning and end, and visits often.

"People here care for one another. They help you, they feed you, they lend what they can ... and there's always music. Compared to New York City, there's more going on in Whitehorse on any night of the week, it seems to me - more places to play, five studios recording music full time, and more people willing to hear your music," he says."I have to keep coming back to this place, these people. It's the only place I feel I belong."

Many of the musicians in Pete's and Mary's cabin were stars the previous night in a concert at the Whitehorse Convention Centre, a converted swimming pool/ice rink in the middle of town, produced by Music Yukon, a government arts agency with a mandate to pro - The Toronto Star


"Where The Heart of Music Is"

Post details: Where The Heart of Music Is - Toronto Star

07/15/06

02:21:20 am, Categories: Article, 1332 words
Where The Heart of Music Is - Toronto Star

Entertainment

ROOTS

Where the heart of music is;
Wherever they roam, these rising stars call a cabin near Whitehorse home.

By Greg Quill

Toronto Star
1404 words
2 April 2006
The Toronto Star
Page C12
Copyright (c) 2006 The Toronto Star

WHITEHORSE -- In this overpowering, moonlit wilderness in the middle of winter, about 50 kilometres north of the Yukon capital, a couple of sheepdogs play like children in the fresh snow piled deep in the clearing around a spacious, handmade log cabin set back from the Alaska Highway and concealed in a forest of thick, towering firs.

They gnaw occasionally on the shinbone of a moose, the slowly braised haunch of which is the centrepiece of a massive buffet inside. It's cold out here, but not uncomfortable, nothing like the -50C of winters past, mutters Yukon songwriter and troubadour Indio Saravanja.

His quiet voice trails away like fog over the porch steps and into the night. He laughs at the antics of the dogs. Music is in the air. Silver light floods the valley and glows off snowcapped mountains on the circling horizon.

This is Saravanja's favourite place. He comes here if he's in Whitehorse on the one Sunday every month when the town's musical community gathers inside, under these high cathedral ceilings, to sing and play and eat.

But he won't be there this weekend. Saravanja and Yukon buddy, songwriter Gordie Tentrees, are embarking, after a two-hander concert at Toronto's Tranzac Club Saturday night, on a month-long road trip across the country. Thirty gigs in 30 days, from here all the way back to Whitehorse, back to that cabin in the woods.

The cabin - and various log outhouses, including a woodshed, a workshop, a guest cottage and a bear-proof food store atop 10-metre-long tree trunks - were built by Pete and Mary (just Pete and Mary, no surnames), two Americans who went bush in the 1970s and made a good living as line trappers, raising their daughter in the bush till she required "socializing" at age 12, at which time they bought a small house in nearby Mayo for the summertime off-seasons. She's now 31, lives in Vancouver with her husband and child, and works for a provincial environmental agency.

Despite their years without other human company, Pete and Mary are generous, hospitable, gregarious people; well-educated, wonderful musicians with an exceptionally civilized sense of social intercourse.

Like almost everyone you meet in Whitehorse, they come from somewhere else, and succumbed in a very short time to the peculiar charm of the Yukon - the isolation, the tight communal bonds, the creative, do-it-yourself spirit, the certain knowledge that here you can truly reinvent yourself, exorcise your demons, dump your back story and "grow a better self," as Tentrees likes to say of the town he adopted 8 years ago. He teaches remedial studies for most of the year, raises his young family, writes, records and spends "20 hours a week on the computer planning my next musical move."

Once a month, Pete and Mary host a Sunday afternoon gathering like this one, he says, open to all the musicians in town, and put out a feast. Today, in the dark that settled around 3: 30 p.m. after a short five hours of sunlight, it's moose stew, elk steaks, venison meatballs in tomato sauce, ratatouille, carrots, mashed garlic potatoes, their own bread, cakes and cookies, all made on a huge wood stove at one end of the cabin, as well as cheese, cold cuts and great wine.

There are 40 or 50 people at the other end of the sprawling, wood fire-warmed room - on sofas and benches covered with Navajo rugs and fur throws - playing guitars, mandolins, a dobro or two, a piano, lap steel, harmonica, standup bass, and singing amazing harmonies. Old songs, new songs, their own songs. They're all concert-level pickers and songwriters, who pick up within a couple of bars everything that bubbles up in the musical pot. Gentle folkies.

"This is the way we live up here," Saravanja says on Pete's and Mary's front porch. Based now in B.C.'s Gulf Islands, he sees Whitehorse as his beginning and end, and visits often.

"People here care for one another. They help you, they feed you, they lend what they can ... and there's always music. Compared to New York City, there's more going on in Whitehorse on any night of the week, it seems to me - more places to play, five studios recording music full time, and more people willing to hear your music," he says."I have to keep coming back to this place, these people. It's the only place I feel I belong."

Many of the musicians in Pete's and Mary's cabin were stars the previous night in a concert at the Whitehorse Convention Centre, a converted swimming pool/ice rink in the middle of town, produced by Music Yukon, a government arts agency with a mandate to pro - The Toronto Star


"Saravanja's songs take flight"

Post details: Saravanja's songs take flight -Yukon News-December 9, 2005

11/03/06

11:49:33 am, Categories: Article, 1232 words
Saravanja's songs take flight -Yukon News-December 9, 2005

by Genesee Keevil

Indio Saravanja had been struggling under his hefty heap of songs for far too long. And now he is digging himself out.
"I felt burdened by my songs all these years, like there is this heavy weight on my back or in my brain," he said. "You are walking around the street and there are all these songs in your head and you have finished writing them, but what i didn't know is that they're not done until they're actually gone and you let them go into the world."
With the release of his self-titled debut CD this fall, Saravanja is beginning to lighten his musical burden. 'I feel like i just purged 11 of my songs and I don't have to worry about them anymore. They are like little kids, they walk on their own feet and that feels so good."
"I just want to have more babies. I can't wait to make another record."
This is a new desire for the Argentinean singer/songwriter from Yellowknife. For many years, Saravanja kept his original songs tucked away, buffered by countless cover tunes.
"You could write great songs and know they are great and put sweat, blood and tears into them, but not be ready to share them," he said. "That was certainly the case for me, I was just too scared."
Music is Saravanja's life blood. "It's scary, when you want to share your secret self, the secret part of you that always kind of saved your life, the part that you are actually living for- it's that one safe place you got all your life."
He left home at 12 to attend high school in Edmonton and then Montreal and the guitar became his only family. "I missed my mom; I was so lonely I fell in love with my acoustic guitar," he said.
He played at least eight hours a day. Saravanja soon left school and began playing on the streets. "I discovered Bob Dylan at 14 and Leonard Cohen at 16 and then that was it. "I wanted to be Jack Kerouac and Dylan."
Lured by the romance of the bohemian lifestyle, Saravanja took off to Spain at 18. Busking abroad, he was making $200 a night, but he still sought greater adventures and New York beckoned.
"I loved it there; it was probably the best year of my life," he said.
But alongside the romance of bohemia came many perils, some in the form of a needle and spoon. And Saravanja realized he had to get out of New York.
"I was there at the right time and it was really exciting and I hung around a lot of people who were later to be really famous, but i felt young and confused and I didn't think I was ready and I wasn't sure I really liked the big business of music," he said.
"Some inner voice was telling me just to get the hell out of there, before it was too late."
One close friend, who got Saravanja his first New York gig, saw he was in trouble and gave him $600 to go back to Yellowknife.
"It took a whole week of shakin' on an old Greyhound / But I made it on back to my Northern Town," sings Saravanja in one of his songs.
He planned to return to New York within the year. But Yellowknife was a musicians' paradise in the early '90s, with 14 bars featuring live music every night.
"I hated playing every night," said Saravanja. "I knew I could do better; I knew I had all these songs and I was a really prolific songwriter and I was just stuck in these bars and I had to be an entertainer and people wanted to come see me, because they knew I could do Van Morrison and Neil Young like nobody else. I always felt like I was wearing a mask." And after hanging out with Jeff Buckley, Ron Sexsmith and Rufus Wainright, Saravanja wanted to return to the city. But he still found problems with the New York music scene.
"Everything was under the guise of being 'alternative', or 'underground', or punk, but it was really just about fashion, he said. "I saw all these people around me getting record deals, and this was just around Nirvana time, and I just saw a bunch of fashion and cloning. And here I am listening to Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and Dylan every night on my walkman in my little room in New York, it just didn't add up. I was 19 and I kind of wanted to be 50."
The chances of singer/songwriters getting heard in this day and age are slim--it's not the '60s anymore, he admitted.
"But if you just keep at it you can kind of start a grassroots fan base, you can still be a poet, you don't have to be pushed around by outer forces."
Admitting he is terrified by the notion of success, Saravanja remains mystified by the music business. "It is so subjective and fashion-based and geared for 13 year old kids," he said. "It's really hard to make a living. I remember Jeff Buckley years ago, when he told me he was just starting to play stadiums, and it was so ironic because every night he had to look out onto a sea of faces and all he saw was a bunch of ball-cap wearing assholes who used to beat - The Yukon News


"Saravanja's songs take flight"

Post details: Saravanja's songs take flight -Yukon News-December 9, 2005

11/03/06

11:49:33 am, Categories: Article, 1232 words
Saravanja's songs take flight -Yukon News-December 9, 2005

by Genesee Keevil

Indio Saravanja had been struggling under his hefty heap of songs for far too long. And now he is digging himself out.
"I felt burdened by my songs all these years, like there is this heavy weight on my back or in my brain," he said. "You are walking around the street and there are all these songs in your head and you have finished writing them, but what i didn't know is that they're not done until they're actually gone and you let them go into the world."
With the release of his self-titled debut CD this fall, Saravanja is beginning to lighten his musical burden. 'I feel like i just purged 11 of my songs and I don't have to worry about them anymore. They are like little kids, they walk on their own feet and that feels so good."
"I just want to have more babies. I can't wait to make another record."
This is a new desire for the Argentinean singer/songwriter from Yellowknife. For many years, Saravanja kept his original songs tucked away, buffered by countless cover tunes.
"You could write great songs and know they are great and put sweat, blood and tears into them, but not be ready to share them," he said. "That was certainly the case for me, I was just too scared."
Music is Saravanja's life blood. "It's scary, when you want to share your secret self, the secret part of you that always kind of saved your life, the part that you are actually living for- it's that one safe place you got all your life."
He left home at 12 to attend high school in Edmonton and then Montreal and the guitar became his only family. "I missed my mom; I was so lonely I fell in love with my acoustic guitar," he said.
He played at least eight hours a day. Saravanja soon left school and began playing on the streets. "I discovered Bob Dylan at 14 and Leonard Cohen at 16 and then that was it. "I wanted to be Jack Kerouac and Dylan."
Lured by the romance of the bohemian lifestyle, Saravanja took off to Spain at 18. Busking abroad, he was making $200 a night, but he still sought greater adventures and New York beckoned.
"I loved it there; it was probably the best year of my life," he said.
But alongside the romance of bohemia came many perils, some in the form of a needle and spoon. And Saravanja realized he had to get out of New York.
"I was there at the right time and it was really exciting and I hung around a lot of people who were later to be really famous, but i felt young and confused and I didn't think I was ready and I wasn't sure I really liked the big business of music," he said.
"Some inner voice was telling me just to get the hell out of there, before it was too late."
One close friend, who got Saravanja his first New York gig, saw he was in trouble and gave him $600 to go back to Yellowknife.
"It took a whole week of shakin' on an old Greyhound / But I made it on back to my Northern Town," sings Saravanja in one of his songs.
He planned to return to New York within the year. But Yellowknife was a musicians' paradise in the early '90s, with 14 bars featuring live music every night.
"I hated playing every night," said Saravanja. "I knew I could do better; I knew I had all these songs and I was a really prolific songwriter and I was just stuck in these bars and I had to be an entertainer and people wanted to come see me, because they knew I could do Van Morrison and Neil Young like nobody else. I always felt like I was wearing a mask." And after hanging out with Jeff Buckley, Ron Sexsmith and Rufus Wainright, Saravanja wanted to return to the city. But he still found problems with the New York music scene.
"Everything was under the guise of being 'alternative', or 'underground', or punk, but it was really just about fashion, he said. "I saw all these people around me getting record deals, and this was just around Nirvana time, and I just saw a bunch of fashion and cloning. And here I am listening to Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and Dylan every night on my walkman in my little room in New York, it just didn't add up. I was 19 and I kind of wanted to be 50."
The chances of singer/songwriters getting heard in this day and age are slim--it's not the '60s anymore, he admitted.
"But if you just keep at it you can kind of start a grassroots fan base, you can still be a poet, you don't have to be pushed around by outer forces."
Admitting he is terrified by the notion of success, Saravanja remains mystified by the music business. "It is so subjective and fashion-based and geared for 13 year old kids," he said. "It's really hard to make a living. I remember Jeff Buckley years ago, when he told me he was just starting to play stadiums, and it was so ironic because every night he had to look out onto a sea of faces and all he saw was a bunch of ball-cap wearing assholes who used to beat - The Yukon News


Discography

Indio Saravanja - Indio Saravanja
released October 2005-Caribou Records
distributor- Festival

Indio Saravanja - The Caravan Sessions
released July 2009-Del Norte Records
self distributed

Indio Saravanja - Songster (14 Early Songs)
released March 2010-Del Norte Records

Indio Saravanja - Little Child
released November 2011-Del Norte Records

Indio Saravanja-Travel On
released December 2012-Del Norte Records

Photos

Bio

Born in Argentina and raised in the Canadian North, this one time actor/dancer/singer from a blue collar background (see Billy Elliot) was busking in Montreal subways by the age of fifteen, performing as a street musician in Spain by seventeen, and, at nineteen, doing his first real gig in New York, courtesy of his friend Jeff Buckley. By this time he had appeared in countless dance and theatre productions on Canada’s biggest stages and realized that music was his calling. His twenties were spent learning to rock on the Canadian bar band circuit and writing prolifically until an invitation came to record and release his celebrated debut album under the Caribou Records label in 2005. Five albums later, Indio Saravanja continues to add to his well-earned Roots-Folk-Rock tag by re-acquainting himself with his South American heritage with the use of instruments such as the Andean Charango. He now resides in Southern Alberta with his wife and young child.
 Indio has been consistently featured on most national CBC radio shows since his first release, which was voted Best New Discovery of 2006 by Canada’s leading folk magazines, and his music has been on steady rotation internationally on leading college and independent stations. He has performed hundreds of concerts in Canada and abroad, and many folk festivals, the largest being the main stage of the 2007 Winnipeg Folk Festival. Four further albums have since been released: in 2009 (The Caravan Sessions), 2010 (Songster-14 Early Songs), 2011 (Little Child), and 2012's (Travel On)
.
Touring solo, or with a full band, Indio has opened shows and shared stages for and with Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bruce Cockburn, Sylvia Tyson, Josh Ritter, Fred Eaglesmith, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, Bill Bourne, and many others. He most recently won a First Place prize at The 2012 Calgary Folk Festival Song Competition.

- he is a poet of the finest water, a keen observer with finely attuned literary sensibilities and a thinker of considerable substance..... Saravanja is clearly connected to the larger contemporary global zeitgeist. Big things are coming his way. (Greg Quill- Toronto Star)