Waiting out the hours before a show, Shilpa Ray is unfailingly polite, even demure. Her petite figure dressed in grays and black, she drifts around the venue, quietly putting together her equipment. Upon seeing her perform, one marvels in hindsight at the incredible off-stage effort it must be for Ms. Ray to keep all of her on-stage aggression and bravado under wraps.

At 2009's SXSW, Ben Sisaro, a music critic for The New York Times, marveled at Ray's fiery presence, saying that she had "a fierce technique on the harmonium" and "a powerfully raw voice." And it is Ray's voice that keeps people talking after a concert. The Village Voice once described it as "a nuclear-grade, paint-evaporating, continent-shifting howl," adding "goddamn can she ever shriek." The music blog Heart on a Stick wrote recently that Ray's voice is "the MGM lion with the world's biggest thorn in its paw."

Growing up in a Hindu household in New Jersey, Ray learned to play the harmonium at a young age. With Her Happy Hookers, she has incorporated the baroque, weezy sound of the instrument into a hard-edged, bluesy sound. This particular performance comes from a show that the band did at the speakeasy venue Death By Audio, located among old warehouse buildings in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn.