Saturday, September 21, 2013

CD Odyssey Disc 552: Loreena McKennitt

Yesterday I wrote my first complete rap song (after many partial efforts).  It is called “I Carry the Load” and it is a pretty fine freshman effort, if I do say so myself.  Now I just need a DJ to give me some fresh beats to rap over.  Maybe I’ll call up Eric B. and see what he is doing, or see what Terminator X is up to.  Or maybe I’ll just keep my day job.  Probably the latter.

This next review is as far from rap music as you can get, but it is variety that makes the music world turn, my friends.

Disc 552 is…. The Book of Secrets
Artist: Loreena McKennitt

Year of Release: 1997

What’s up with the Cover?  Loreena herself, looking resplendent despite facing sinister (if you know your heraldry, that will make sense).  The yellowish sepia tone makes it look very old, like the cover of a book of secrets maybe.

How I Came To Know It:  I was a fan of Loreena McKennitt since I first heard her album “The Visit” back in 1991.  I bought “Book of Secrets” when it came out.

How It Stacks Up:  We have six Loreena McKennitt albums.  “Book of Secrets” is good, but not great.  I’d put if fifth out of the six.

Rating:  3 stars

Sometimes as an artist becomes more and more successful, they can fall deeper and deeper into their own sound.  This can be both good and bad.  Part of Loreena McKennitt’s sound is that she is one of the great masters of establishing a mood in music. 

Establishing a mood can take a while, and on “Book of Secrets” there are only eight songs, but a full 53 minutes of music.  I found myself alternating between soaking in the journey and wishing she’d just get on with it.

In the liner notes, McKennitt is keenly aware of her own inclinations, offering up a Lao Tzu quote that goes, “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”  Good stuff, although I personally prefer Canadian Earle Birney’s expression of the same sentiment: “do you want to climb this mountain, or just get to the top?”  Whatever your preferred quote, this is a good way to approach this record if you want to enjoy it

All of the usual excellence in McKennitt’s earlier records is evident on “Book of Secrets” as well.  McKennitt’s operatic voice soars over a rogue’s gallery of instruments from around the world, including the bodhran, the hurdy gurdy, the shawm and mandocello (seriously, I’m not making these things up – go ahead and google them).  Many of the instruments are ancient medieval and renaissance affairs, and they give the recording a timeless quality.

Her subject matter is similar to previous records, as she explores the roots of the ever-travelling Celts across Eurasia.  “Skellig” is a nice track in this vein, telling the tale of a monastery located on the Skellig Islands near Ireland. You can practically feel the dark and dank stone walls, and the lone candle burning in a tower as some ancient dark ages monk scribbled away, writing scripture and history for future generations to discover.  Of course, it is slightly less spellbinding when you think about some of the classical texts and history monks in this era scraped off their pages so they’d have something to write on.  But I digress…

The true classic on this record is “The Highwayman.”  Like she did with Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” on an earlier record, McKennitt has taken the epic Alfred Noyes poem, “The Highwayman” and brilliantly set it to music.

My degree is in English Literature, and I’ll always have a soft spot for a great poem.  For me, McKennitt’s treatment of “The Highwayman” is a five star affair that never fails to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

The Highwayman” tells the tale of a robber who has taken a shine to an innkeeper’s daughter, and visits here between heists.  The English redcoats set a trap for him there, but not before drinking the innkeeper’s ale without paying and tying up the daughter in the window so she can watch her lover die.  They tie a musket under her chin and (spoiler alert) she twists her hands in her bonds until she is able to get her finger on the musket’s trigger, and tragically warn him of the trap by killing herself.

When the Highwayman hears, he flees the trap, only to learn later what has happened and decide to return back into the trap to avenge her death:

“Back, he spurred like a madman shrieking his curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs i’the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down on the highway
Down like a dog on the highway
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.”

So, no, he didn’t quite avenge his lover, but full points for bravery.  Also, the story shows that long before “Breaking Bad” gave us Walter White good writing was already making us root for what are essentially bad people.

Noyes’ writing flows naturally anyway, and with both McKennitt’s voice and the music perfectly punctuating the ebb and flow of the poem’s emotion, it makes it better than any simple reading could ever accomplish. The final stanza tells of how the Highwayman’s ghost still haunts the inn looking for vengeance, even as the music shifts to a disquieting whisper of percussion and almost whispered words:

“Still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
The highwayman comes riding
Riding, riding
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

There are other good songs on “Book of Secrets”, including the complex rhythms on “Night Right Across the Caucusus” and the piano-driven devotional “Dante’s Prayer.”  “Night Ride…” uses a multitude of instruments to create the feeling of a journey, while “Dante’s Prayer” is sparse, using mostly the aforementioned piano, accentuated with timely violin bits and some Gregorian Chants.  I was again reminded what a fine production ear McKennitt has (she not only wrote, but produced the record).

“Book of Secrets album does drag a bit in places (“Marco Polo” made me feel like I was listening to background music from the Civilization videogame), but overall the album is a solid effort.


Best tracks:  The Highwayman, Night Ride Across the Caucusus, Dante’s Prayer

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