Disc 262 is...The Mask and Mirror
Artist: Loreena McKennitt
Year of Release: 1994
What’s Up With The Cover?: In previous reviews of Loreena McKennitt I've been kind of harsh on the cover art, so I'll ease off this time and just say that this is an improvement. Obviously, as time went on Loreena had a bigger art budget. I'm not a fan of the collage as art, and her hair still needs help, but this is at least passable. For a folk album, it is positively high tech.
How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan of McKennitt when this album came out in 1994, and so just bought it as a matter of course. There was a music video for "The Bonny Swans" which I believe alerted me to the fact that there was a new album to be had.
How It Stacks Up: I have six Loreena McKennitt albums. Of these, I'd put this one third.
Rating: 4 stars.
This my third review of Loreena McKennitt, so I won't get into too much detail on the basics (haunting voice, amazing harpist etc.) and focus instead on this album.
While I was already firmly a fan of McKennitt in 1994, this was in many respects her breakout album (if such a thing is possible in the folk genre). The usual McKennitt elements are here, with the focus still being on the harp and vocals, but this record adds a number of other layers, including the occasional use of synthesizer. This brings it a more new age feeling than was present on her first two records, and advances themes only lightly covered by the record that immediately preceded it, "The Visit".
A quick review of the album's liner notes to see what other instruments were on here revealed quite an array. Everything from the pedestrian (electric guitar, fiddle, accordion) to the typically arcane folk fare (bouzouki, Uilleann pipes, balalaika) and into things so strange I'd never even heard of them (the hurdy-gurdy, the dumbek and the udu).
A quick search on the 'interwebs' reveals the latter two are types of drums, and the hurdy-gurdy is some bizarre stringed instrument played by means of a crank.
I couldn't pick out where each of these is used, let alone why, but this rogue's gallery of instruments could easily come off sounding like a disjointed mess in less agile hands. Instead, they complement each other very well under McKennitt's detailed and carefully wrought production. It never seems like an instrument is just put on for novelty's sake, but rather in every song, the sounds all just seem to belong with each other.
This is saying something, because as I noted earlier, McKennitt strays far afield from just a traditional Celtic folk album here. She works in Middle Eastern music, Russian folk sounds (hence the balalaika) and various other sounds from throughout central and western asia. It is an album that lovingly traces the roots of the Celtic people themselves, and brings their sounds from across thousands of miles of geography and hundreds of years of musical history.
It is deliberately done, certainly, but it is done with a deft and subtle hand. McKennitt gives us a musical history lesson without seeming preachy.
There are only eight songs on the album, most of which are very long - between six and nine minutes. They take time to develop, but never feel overblown. They are each exactly as long as they need to be. OK - except "The Mystic's Dream" - I could've shaved a minute off that one, but it is a minor quibble.
Favourites include "Full Circle" and "The Bonny Swans". The latter is a very grim (and Grimm-like) fairy tale of a woman drowned by her sister out of jealousy of her lover. The drowned sister's body floats up into a miller's wheel, where a harpist finds it, and makes a harp out of it (hair as strings, finger bones as tuning pegs and rib cage as the frame). The resulting harp is enchanted, and plays itself in front of the murdered girl's family - identifying her sister as the killer.
While I always enjoy the poetic justice in the song, I also wonder what sort of harpist makes a harp out of a dead body - and then what kind of hall lets him bring it into the dining room and play it. I mean - gross. But that's old school folk tales for you - they can be pretty nasty.
As usual, McKennitt also sets a few poems to music (Yeats' "The Two Trees" and a speech by Prospero from Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), but my sentimental favourite is a conversion of a 15th Century Spanish poem into a song called "The Dark Night of the Soul."
This song shows McKennitt in all her glory - from her deep whisper in the verses that sounds like a ghost is singing to you, up to full operatic majesty in the higher register of the chorus. The original poem is about a man's relationship with God, but it always struck me as incredibly romantic:
"Upon a darkened night, the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright I fled my house while all in quiet rest
Shrouded by the night and by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes while all within lay quiet as the dead.
"Oh night thou was my guide
Oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover to the beloved one
Transforming each of them into the other."
Best of all, on my first date with Sheila, I was in full thrall to this album's beauty, and when I invited her in, I suggested we sit and listen to 'this great song I've recently discovered.' We sat in the dark and I put on "Dark Night of the Soul." Not only did Sheila love it - she already knew it. She had the album, and had even seen this particular tour live. So while it could've been a little heavy handed for a 'we just met' moment - it all worked out after all.
So in summation, this is a fine album, with some great memories, and while I'm not suggesting it is likely to help you score girls, it certainly worked for me.
Best tracks: The Bonny Swans, The Dark Night of the Soul, Full Circle, The Two Trees
Year of Release: 1994
What’s Up With The Cover?: In previous reviews of Loreena McKennitt I've been kind of harsh on the cover art, so I'll ease off this time and just say that this is an improvement. Obviously, as time went on Loreena had a bigger art budget. I'm not a fan of the collage as art, and her hair still needs help, but this is at least passable. For a folk album, it is positively high tech.
How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan of McKennitt when this album came out in 1994, and so just bought it as a matter of course. There was a music video for "The Bonny Swans" which I believe alerted me to the fact that there was a new album to be had.
How It Stacks Up: I have six Loreena McKennitt albums. Of these, I'd put this one third.
Rating: 4 stars.
This my third review of Loreena McKennitt, so I won't get into too much detail on the basics (haunting voice, amazing harpist etc.) and focus instead on this album.
While I was already firmly a fan of McKennitt in 1994, this was in many respects her breakout album (if such a thing is possible in the folk genre). The usual McKennitt elements are here, with the focus still being on the harp and vocals, but this record adds a number of other layers, including the occasional use of synthesizer. This brings it a more new age feeling than was present on her first two records, and advances themes only lightly covered by the record that immediately preceded it, "The Visit".
A quick review of the album's liner notes to see what other instruments were on here revealed quite an array. Everything from the pedestrian (electric guitar, fiddle, accordion) to the typically arcane folk fare (bouzouki, Uilleann pipes, balalaika) and into things so strange I'd never even heard of them (the hurdy-gurdy, the dumbek and the udu).
A quick search on the 'interwebs' reveals the latter two are types of drums, and the hurdy-gurdy is some bizarre stringed instrument played by means of a crank.
I couldn't pick out where each of these is used, let alone why, but this rogue's gallery of instruments could easily come off sounding like a disjointed mess in less agile hands. Instead, they complement each other very well under McKennitt's detailed and carefully wrought production. It never seems like an instrument is just put on for novelty's sake, but rather in every song, the sounds all just seem to belong with each other.
This is saying something, because as I noted earlier, McKennitt strays far afield from just a traditional Celtic folk album here. She works in Middle Eastern music, Russian folk sounds (hence the balalaika) and various other sounds from throughout central and western asia. It is an album that lovingly traces the roots of the Celtic people themselves, and brings their sounds from across thousands of miles of geography and hundreds of years of musical history.
It is deliberately done, certainly, but it is done with a deft and subtle hand. McKennitt gives us a musical history lesson without seeming preachy.
There are only eight songs on the album, most of which are very long - between six and nine minutes. They take time to develop, but never feel overblown. They are each exactly as long as they need to be. OK - except "The Mystic's Dream" - I could've shaved a minute off that one, but it is a minor quibble.
Favourites include "Full Circle" and "The Bonny Swans". The latter is a very grim (and Grimm-like) fairy tale of a woman drowned by her sister out of jealousy of her lover. The drowned sister's body floats up into a miller's wheel, where a harpist finds it, and makes a harp out of it (hair as strings, finger bones as tuning pegs and rib cage as the frame). The resulting harp is enchanted, and plays itself in front of the murdered girl's family - identifying her sister as the killer.
While I always enjoy the poetic justice in the song, I also wonder what sort of harpist makes a harp out of a dead body - and then what kind of hall lets him bring it into the dining room and play it. I mean - gross. But that's old school folk tales for you - they can be pretty nasty.
As usual, McKennitt also sets a few poems to music (Yeats' "The Two Trees" and a speech by Prospero from Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), but my sentimental favourite is a conversion of a 15th Century Spanish poem into a song called "The Dark Night of the Soul."
This song shows McKennitt in all her glory - from her deep whisper in the verses that sounds like a ghost is singing to you, up to full operatic majesty in the higher register of the chorus. The original poem is about a man's relationship with God, but it always struck me as incredibly romantic:
"Upon a darkened night, the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright I fled my house while all in quiet rest
Shrouded by the night and by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes while all within lay quiet as the dead.
"Oh night thou was my guide
Oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover to the beloved one
Transforming each of them into the other."
Best of all, on my first date with Sheila, I was in full thrall to this album's beauty, and when I invited her in, I suggested we sit and listen to 'this great song I've recently discovered.' We sat in the dark and I put on "Dark Night of the Soul." Not only did Sheila love it - she already knew it. She had the album, and had even seen this particular tour live. So while it could've been a little heavy handed for a 'we just met' moment - it all worked out after all.
So in summation, this is a fine album, with some great memories, and while I'm not suggesting it is likely to help you score girls, it certainly worked for me.
Best tracks: The Bonny Swans, The Dark Night of the Soul, Full Circle, The Two Trees
1 comment:
I actually didn't own this - we played it over and over when I worked at CH. Having you play that on our first date for me was one of the best moments of knowing you - you were so excited to play this for me...and then when I knew it, you were even more excited. Good stuff. I think of "Dark Night of the Soul" as our song.
Ha, the word verification is "nilist".
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