Lisa Gerrard-- The Silver Tree (2006)

            The day legendary world music/Goth band DEAD CAN DANCE decided to call it quits was a sad day for me.  I grew into adulthood listening to their strange blend of drums, ambient keyboards, and dark, intelligent soul-expanding vocals.  The singing duo of Lisa Gerrard & Brendan Perry created something special, a blend of melancholy beauty not heard since THE COCTEAU TWINS and THIS MORTAL COIL.  After an amicable split, the various members went their own ways, some finding time to work again in pairs or trios.  But Lisa Gerrard, despite her brilliant works with Pieter Bourke, including DUALITY (1998) and various film scores, like THE INSIDER (1999), she went mostly solo and moved on to film work, where her soundtrack efforts have become legend in themselves, counting among their number the likes of Oscar lauded GLADIATOR (2000), BLACK HAWK DOWN (2001) and WHALE RIDER (2003).  While she continues to still create some of the most exciting film music to date, it’s her solo stuff that really grabs me.

Last year’s release of THE SILVER TREE is a thing of ambient beauty, rivaling even the queen of chill out world music, Enya.  As always, Gerrard utilizes various instruments from around the world (supposedly she is adept at over thirty different instruments) and lays down some of the most luxurious vocals, going from low heart wrenching moans to soul soaring cries, I’ve ever heard outside of jazz.  It has a rich full quality that seems to grow stronger with each new release.

The songs are absolutely hypnotizing in their power to lay down layers of sound that ultimately insinuate themselves in the listener’s ear and in their mind, creating dark and dreamy visual to match the tracks’ titles, such as ‘Towards the Tower’, ‘Sword of the Samurai’ and ‘Space Weaver’, each slowly building into vast soundscapes.  But it is her voice that completes the spell as it washes over the listener, drawing them ever closer to whatever Heavenly visions to which this soulful and talented aspires.

Tracks:

1. "In Exile" – 6:04
2. "Shadow Hunter" – 2:04
3. "Come Tenderness" – 3:29
4. "The Sea Whisperer" – 4:26
5. "Mirror Medusa" – 4:50
6. "Space Weaver" – 7:21 (Lisa Gerrard & Michael Edwards)
7. "Abwoon" – 3:57
8. "Serenity" – 3:30
9. "Towards the Tower" – 10:22
10. "Wandering Star" – 2:33
11. "Sword of the Samurai" – 1:35
12. "Devotion" – 8:02
13. "The Valley of the Moon" – 3:25

--Nickolas Cook