- 1 Spanish Guitars and Night Plazas
- 2 A Hundred Wishes
- 3 Ages Past, Ages Hence
- 4 The Ballad of the Fox Hunter
- 5 Manx Ayre
- 6 La Belle Dame Sans Merci
- 7 Sun Moon and Stars
- 8 Breaking of the Sword
- 9 Lost Souls
About
The Canadian singer/songwriter's first full-length collection of
original material since 2006's Ancient Muse, Lost Souls sees
Loreena McKennitt delivering another richly detailed and alluringly
cinematic set of worldbeat-infused, modern-folk pieces that hearken
back to career-defining albums like The Visit, The Mask and Mirror,
and The Book of Secrets. It's the latter LP that's echoed the most
-- McKennitt states in the liner notes that a number of the songs
were written around the time of The Visit -- with the elegant
balladry of "Lost Souls" and the moving Canadian Forces Central
Band and Stratford Concert Choir-assisted "Breaking of the Sword"
invoking that album's emotional high point: Her lush musical
rendering of the Alfred Tennyson poem "Lady of Shalott." Once
again, McKennitt looks to poetry for inspiration, with W.B.Yeats
and John Keats providing the narratives for "The Ballad of the Fox
Hunter" and "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," respectively, while she
cites the works of authors Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of
Trees) and Ronald Wright (A Short History of Progress) as the
motivation behind the evocative and ecologically minded "Ages Past,
Ages Hence." While McKennitt continues to incorporate Galician and
Middle Eastern themes into her work -- opener "Spanish Guitars
& Night Plazas" builds to a lovely flamenco crescendo, and
"Sun, Moon, & Stars" invokes the sights, sounds, and smells of
a Moroccan bazaar -- the bulk of Lost Souls is spent wandering the
English countryside. It makes sense, as McKennitt's early work was
predominantly Celtic in nature, and despite a dizzying area of
exotic instrumentation -- nyckelharpa, oud, kanoun, lyra, hurdy
gurdy, etc. -- it's clear that the rolling hills and temperate
moors of the United Kingdom, as well as the extensive vistas of her
Canadian homeland, are where her heart resides. ~ James Christopher
Monger
Hi-Res 24-bit – 44.10 kHz
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