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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best New Age Celtic, January 8, 2001
I purchased this on a whim about in 1995 from a Science Shop in Toronto. The Science Shop chain has vanished but the CD appears still in large quantities in the racks of the Museum Company, and smaller quantities in record stores, indication that it continues to sell and find new listeners. How not? This is the kind of music that started New Age Celtic, not the later derivitate, imitation Celtic that has given New Age Celtic a bad name. And it has remained one of my favorite CDs. The sounds are exquisite, delicate, soft, subtle, misty, dreamy, warm and comforting, but not mushy. I think it slightly the best of ker albums that I have heard. (Two earlier ones are unavailable.) The material is nearly all traditional, but unknown to me before I purchased this CD: a greatly varying mix of genuine Irish (Gaelic lyrics only), little-known Latin church music (a Sarum plainsong and a Benedictine Christmas Carol from the Isle of Wight), and one thobbing Breton song. Only three songs are original compositions by Minogue and Brian P. Myers, but all are excellent; one of them is the album title track, and the most album's most obvisouly exciting piece with its lively "Gloria" chorus. Minogue sings with a restrained, flowing, unearthly, echoing voice floating in etherial, spiritual purity, sometimes above and sometimes blending within the weaving instrumental harmonies and drones. For this is very much an ensemble album with superb backing and bridging by other musicians on cello, fiddle, mandolin, Irish pipes, whistle, oboe, English horn, keyboards, tabla, and bodhrán. Of course Minogue's bright, neo-Celtic harp rightly takes first place. A male chorus sometimes augments Minogue's singing, and sometimes alternates with it. The tunes are linked by a spiritual emphasis, but none sound churchy. One, "Mal Bhán Ní Chuilionáin", is in fact a somewhat frivolous song of repentance for all pleasure by a man who has lost his lady love. The liner notes make clear the importance to Minogue of the veneraton of the goddess Brigit and of nature found in some of these songs. Some tracks, "Anach Cuan" for example, are very close to Goth music, or something the group Enigma might produce. A closer connection is to the Celtic music of Loreena McKennitt or to Enya, though Minogue has a distinct sound of her own. But anyone who likes any these kinds of musics should give this album a listen. If only the liner notes gave translations and more information instead of John O'Donohue's finely written but unnecessary essay.
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by Áine Minogue 
