Deconstruction: Arling and Cameron with "Shiva's Daughters"

This past year I started reading The Ramayana. I'm about a third of the way through the book and it's loooong. As you may or may not know, it is the epic tale of Rama (a Hindu deity and man), his marriage to Sita, his exile from the kingdom of Ayodhya, the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana, the ruler of Lanka, and Rama's war against Lanka to retrieve Sita. It's full of Hindu morality, including respect for parents and elders, the importance of keeping one's promises and upholding the duties and promises of one's family. In a sense, we make our own choices but we also have to abide by the choices of those who have gone before us. Anyway, that is a long introduction to the fact that I don't know much about Hinduism or its pantheon other than what I've picked up here and there and what The Ramayana is imparting to me. Shiva is one of the Hindu deities, and in fact is one of the primary forms of God. He is both benevolence and fearsome. He is a yogi and a patron of the arts, and he lives with his wife Parvati and his children Ganesha and Kartikeya. Yet he is also depicted slaying demons, and he is partly responsible for the fact that Ganesha is the elephant-headed god, because in one of his fearsome forms he accidentally cut the head off of his own son, killing him, and then persuaded a wise old elephant to donate his head so that the child might live.

Today's song is by Arling and Cameron and is entitled Shiva's Daughters, which is interesting because I was not aware that Shiva had any daughters...but he does. One daughter was apparently born when his wife, Parvati, became lonely while Shiva was away and formed Ashokasundari from the Ashoka tree. Her beauty caused her to be stalked by a demon named Hunda until her true love Nahusha rescues her and marries her. Another daughter, Manasa, was apparently born when Shiva's semen touched a statue carved by the mother of snakes (not sure why his semen was flying around but I guess this stuff happens). Manasa is thus the serpent goddess who cures snakebites, and because she was rejected by Shiva and Parvati is a very jealous and ill-tempered goddess.

Anyway, that's what I assume is the story behind the name of today's song. Arling and Cameron are a Dutch electronic duo made up of Gerry Arling and Richard Cameron. They began creating music in 1994, based on the Shibuya-kei kitsch-pop deconstructionism founded in Japan a few years earlier. They started by having parties around Amsterdam and from those parties they released 16 singles which ultimately led to collaborations with musicians such as Fantastic Plastic Machine and Bebel Gilberto. They take inspiration from French pop, spy movie themes, lounge, '70s light rock, Japanese Shibuya-kei and kitschy music genres. You can find Shiva's Daughters on their 2000 album Music for Imaginary Films, and on the compilation CD Putumayo Presents: World Lounge (2002).

PS: Today marks one half year since I started posting a random song a day from our collection. I started on June 15th with this selection from the The Touré Raichel Collective. If you like what I've done so far, please feel free to add a comment and let me know that you're out there!