Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy - Immortal Memory
This was a birthday present (well, bought with birthday money, but it amounts to the same thing). Iâm a huge fan of Lisa Gerrard, as Iâve mentioned before, so I was keen to get her new album with Patrick Cassidy. Itâs a very spiritual album, with many of the tracks taking their lyrics or theme from religious works. Thereâs a version of the Lordâs Prayer in Aramaic (âAbwoonâ), a prayer carved into the choir stalls of the Church of San Damiano in Assisi (âPsallit in Aure Deiâ), and the feel of the whole album is reflective and reverential. For an atheist/agnostic, Iâm strangely drawn to religious music of all denominations. I might not share the Faith, but Iâm drawn to the passion (with a small âpâ) and serenity embodied in religious music.
I wasnât too sure about the synthesised strings on these tracks to begin. One of the things that I always liked about Lisa Gerrardâs music and that of Dead Can Dance was the fact that they used a lot of real (by which I mean analogue) instruments. However, it does improve with repeated listenings, and the similarity of the orchestration between the tracks gives the album a very integrated feelâa bit like an opera or a choral Mass.
âThe Song of Amerginâ is a striking and rather dramatic work, based on an ancient Gaelic poem. âMaranathaâ is a meditative chant based on the Aramaic phrase âCome Lordâ repeated over and over. A male voice (I thinkâit could be Lisa herself as she has such an astonishing vocal range) sings the phrase âMaranathaâ repeatedly as a mantra, and then Lisaâs voice comes soaring in. Her style reminds me a bit of the Bulgarian womensâ choir: wild but somehow celebratory and sorrowful all at the same time. If you imagine an androgynous angel who has witnessed all the joy and all the sorrow in the world, and is expressing it in songâthatâs sort of what she sounds like. This track made my hair stand on end. âAbwoonâ is quite gentle, and much less passionate, but very beautiful. âAmerginâs Invocation has an epic, filmic feel, and âSailing to Byzantiumâ is eerie.
The album is growing on me more as I listen to it. Itâs quite different from the Dead Can Dance albums, and even from Lisa Gerrardâs previous solo albums, but itâs an interesting departure.
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Thanks for a previous tip that got me to buy a Dead Can Dance lp. ( ok., ok., cd.). As a militant athiest I can identify with your puzzlement. Myself I have a love for gospel, black, white, country whatever, and protestant traditional hymns, which does at times give me rather strange company in the record bins, but good music is good music! I would like to mention a swedish album by a folkgroup called Garmarna, the album is "Hildegard von Bingen", I assume that the name may ring a bell, medieval woman catholic mystic etc.. Anyway you might like it.----- john: I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one
I have indeed heard some of Hildegard von Bingen's music, and I've even got a Garmana album (bet that surprises you!), but not that one. A friend of mine introduced me to Garmana with the album 'Vengeance' (I can't remember the Swedish title offhand), and I love their music. This is all a long-winded way of saying that I'd probably love the album you mentioned, and I'll look out for it.
by bsag @ 03/04/2004 3:04 pm • Permalink •
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Very interesting!
by Andrey @ 16/04/2008 7:15 am • Permalink •
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It`s a good article.
by Mike @ 04/05/2008 6:23 pm • Permalink •
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