Customer Reviews

Nuages Du Monde

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was bitterly disappointed by 'Chimera' and could not get into that album. Just like Enigma, the creators of Delerium, the synth-industrial masters Leeb & Fulber has taken Delerium into a more streamlined, mainstream sound. I will not shy away from stating I am a fan of the early Delerium sound and miss it horribly (even though I have all their albums), but 'Nuages Du Monde' exceeded my estimations and expectations of this album. Indeed, Delerium have returned to form, Leeb and Fulber have heard their fan based and merged their own expectations of the future of Delerium with fan wants and needs.

This album was produced in Canada by Leeb and Fulber with the programming done by Fulber. Fulber and Leeb keep on astonishing me with their releases with Delerium and FLA and the several other side projects they have in the works. They are very talented and at the moment the best in the industrial scene with the likes of D.J Tiesto, Orbital, Covenant and Kraftwerk. It was also good to see the album was labeled by Nettwork Records. They have had a long and rich association and it is good to see this association continuing and the support recieved has shown in this remarkable album.

As in Chimera, Semantic Spaces and Poem, Delerium continues to employ the graces of beautiful female vocal leads in their songs and we have Kristy Thirsk and Jael returning as well as the Mediaeval Baebes. I do miss Sarah McLachlan and wished she had sung lyrics in at least one song. Would have made this album that much more priceless. However this album sees the first time appearance of Kirsty Hawkshaw who sings vocals in alot of DJ Tiesto's masterpieces. She has a beautiful and talented voice. Another new vocalist is the classical induced Isabel Bayrakdarian of Persian heritage who has a unique voice on par with Sarah Brightman. She was beautiful to listen to in 'Lumenis'.

There are only 2 songs in this release that is unvocalised and a return to the early Delerium sounds and they were my favourite songs. 'Tectonic Shift' is the longest song and purely instrumental where Leeb and Fulber use synths to return Delerium to the fans. The last song on the CD is 'Apparition', which is also instrumental and a pure pleasure to listen to.

My faith has returned in Delerium and I look forward with bated breath to their next release due in 2008. This album is for all Delerium fans, early fans or not. Everyone can take enough from this album.

I find this album to be my favorite since Semantic Spaces, but in its own way. They definitely started down a particular path with Karma onward, but Chimera and Poem just didn't grab me. This one does, and shakes hard. I found myself moved to tears in some spots, much like the first time I heard "Silence" or "Flowers Become Screens" - it's somewhat less sensual, unfortunately, but still evocative, touching, moving. I'd been worried that things would turn too "pop" ever since Poem, but this represents a return to complexity I just didn't feel in those last two albums.

Ok. I have been a fan of Bill Leeb & Rhys Fulber's work for a LONG time. Delerium, Front Line Assembly, & virtually every other side project they have done. They are legends as far as I am concerned and have created some of the best music of the last 15 years. Delerium started as several albums of dark beat-less ambient music. This changed with the "Semantic Spaces" release. Despite the change to a more dancey approach, the album was brilliant and beautiful, featuring lush ethereal sounds and fresh rhythms as well as chants and female vocals. They followed it up with an absolute masterpiece in "Karma". Gorgeous ethereal sounds mixed with tight blippy programming loops and perfect female vocals. Hanting and enchanting and blissful. Then things started to go downhill. "Poem" was OK, but the change in style was concerning...more pop and less mysterious/ ethereal sounding. The vocals and lyrics were more straightforward and "poppy" as well. Then "Chimera". Yikes. Total pop stuff suited for adult contemporary radio. I almost didn't buy the new album, but I can never count these guys out, so I got it. First off, some of the songs do at least have a little more of the ethereal sounds, so I like that. The problem is that the songs are not catchy or interesting, and sound very generic. Also, the style is still way too poppy and sounds like they are trying way to hard to create a radio hit. I listened to this the first time with a friend who is also a fan and we were literally cringing several times at how bad some of the songs are. The best songs are the instrumental songs. I LOVE Kristy Thirsk's voice, she has been a highlight of Delerium for years...but her songs here don't suit her vocal style and sound uninspired. If you liked the last couple Delerium albums, you may like this, but I yearn for the mesmerising artistry that made Semantic Spaces and Karma great. This stuff is decent background music, but don't expect too much.

I would have given this a 4.5 stars if it was possible but felt 4 was too low.

After a rather uninspiring and pop oriented release with Chimera, Leeb/Fulber re-unite fulltime with the release of Nuages du Monde. Though still holding elements of Chimera's poppier sound at times, overall the sound is much more ethnic and soundscaping then both Chimera and Poem (to some extent). This is mostly due to the introduction of Isabel Bayrakdarian and Kiran Ahluwalia as guest artists. Isabel brings her soprano/operatic voice to the foreground on both Angelicus and Lumenis, easily two highlights on the album. Kiran Ahluwalia lends her voice to a very Bollywood feeling tune with Indoctrination. This combined with your typical Delerium fast beat, bass driven music and it could easily have fit on Karma, arguably Delerium's best work to date.

The Mediaeval Babes provide vocals on an additional two tracks, Extollere and Sister Sojourn Ghost and like Isabel's and Kiran's contributions are less lyrically structured, sounding more like an additional instrument or sample. Extollere is very reminiscent to Aria from Poem where SSG has strong Conjure One (Fulber's solo project) elements, both excellent tracks!

Fans of Chimera will enjoy songs by Zoe Johnston, Kristy Thirsk and Kirsty Hawkshaw who provide more traditional sounding and structured tracks.

Jael, the singer famous for After All, Chimera's big single also provides a very pop oriented tune on the album called Lost and Found. However, unlike the previous three artists tracks which though poppier in nature manage to fit into the realm of what Nuages has created, Lost and Found simply stands out as a Top 40 pop tune that dare I say may be one of their worst tunes ever written.

Delerium's famous instrumentals are also present with the epic Tectonic Shift and choir based Apparition. On both these tracks Delerium has taken their sound and created something not quite heard before. Both have a very cinematic feel, with a lot of strings and synths going hand in hand.

Its clear that Leeb/Fulber are continuing to evolve their sound and take it other places and for that one must respect and appreciate what they have accomplished. Though it works in more areas then it does not, it still lacks something. There is still not a tight cohesiveness and structure that made Karma and Semantic Spaces both original and groundbreaking.

However Nuages is still a strong release from the masters of ambient, electronic music and is a must for any Delerium fan.

Delerium is one of my all time favorite bands. I have been a fan for several years now. I must admit their last studio album "Chimera" was far from perfect. There were some good songs but the album wasn't as good as "Karma" and "Poem" were to me. I was a bit nervous about the new album "Nuages du Monde" after my mild disappointment with "Chimera". Thankfully worries were put to rest. I found "Nuages du Monde" to be a real gem. I love the operatic sounds of "Angelicus". Isabel Bayrakdarian has a lovely voice and it matches well with the music. Gotta love Katherine Blake and the gals in Mediaevael Baebes. Their contributions to Delerium's music, past and present, is always a delight to hear. And it is always good to hear the enchanting vocals by Kristy Thirsk and Kirsty Hawkshaw. What would a Delerium cd be without their lovely ethereal voices? I just bought "Nuages du Monde" today and I am already listening to it for the second time which says a lot about what I think of the cd.

I'm a huge Delerium fan and own all their albums. I have sung their praises and turned friends onto their music. Their fifth album for Nettwerk Records, Nuages Du Monde (Clouds of the World) is lush, exotic, cinematic, and features a fine assortment of breathy female vocalists, however, the experience is like listening to sonic wallpaper. Songs meander aimlessly. The compositions are not all that memorable. The whole is not greater than the sum of the parts, unfortunately.

Delerium have 3 phases in their career. Early on, they were darker, with few if any vocals or pop sensibilities, perfect film soundtrack music. Begining with Semantic Spaces, they began their "chanting monks phase," while composing catchier yet distinctive songs and mixing in plenty of breathy female vocals along with exotic instrumentation. Recently, they have become more of an ambient techno project with songs that have well-recorded pieces but taken as a whole, do not impress and are not terribly memorable or distinctive. There are some exceptions, but overall, this is sonic wallpaper.

Delerium is an off-shoot of the industrial group Front Line Assembley, and is the product of the imagination of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber. While the duo have earned significant accolades for their previous compositions in the Delerium world (not to mention Synaesthesia, Noise Unit, Pro Tech, Intermix and Equinox, not to mention Skinny Puppy), they may need to take a step back next time and really evaluates the compositions as a whole and not get themselves lost in the undeniable ethereal, cinematic ethno-ambient glory of it all.

Like with so many bands who have been around more than 10 years, Delerium's creative energies appear to be all but spent. I hope they were simply unfocused on this album rather than creatively dead.

Delerium's newest, Nuages du Monde ("Clouds of the World"), is perhaps the best "update" of a band's signature sound in recent memory. While not without its flaws, the album provides the return to form we've all been waiting for. While it's unlikely, in my opinion, that any future Delerium work could echo the majestic grace of 1997's "Karma"-- whose tracks consumed and summarized entire years of my life-- Nuages du Monde does a respectable job. It certainly could have been improved beyond this, so for that I have to knock off a star, but it isn't "bad" by any stretch.

The highlights of the album for me are the two instrumentals-- the soaring "Lumenis", with layer upon layer of textures and ethnic samples, and "Tectonic Shift", easily Delerium's best instrumental work to date. The latter is a slowly-unravelling masterpiece of tension, with perhaps the best blend of modern electronics and ancient instruments I've ever heard-- from this band or anyone. The sheer grandeur of its movement, undulating across violins, choirs, arpeggiated electronics and tribal drums, suggests nothing so much as the dance of the continents--truly, few tracks ever recorded possess such fitting titles! Unquestionably worth the album price for this one alone.

Similarly, most of the tracks here are generally strong, though at times the vocals (which tend to bring in some rather strange harmonies) can be a little grating-- especially in "Self-Sabateur" and "The Way You Wanted To Be". Unlike most people I really like "Lost and Found" because of its catchiness, though I completely understand everyone's complaints about it--it is unapologetically pop, completely out of place, and silly. "Indoctrination", on the other hand, grounds ethereal synth-rock with spiritual vocals and a sense of fun that's often lacking in the Canadian duo's earlier and more serious works. Also of note is "Apparition", a surprisingly moving, appropriately mystical finale that perfectly encapsulates a sense of "ending".

One never knows exactly what to expect from Delerium-- and I've been a fan of every modern album they've released-- but "Nuages du Monde" rightfully takes its place in their catalog. While certainly imperfect, often marred rather than bolstered by vocals, it is far preferable to many other artists' attempts to "duplicate Karma"-- showing once and for all that Leeb & Fulber have definitely still got it goin' on.

Interesting that there are only a few major and minor notes to choose from to create music. So how do artists take such a small pallete and continue to create such inspirational art and innovation? I have all of Delerium's music and enjoy all of it. I "get" Chimera, too, at least I think I do. :)

The guru Tilopa said that enlightenment comes from being open to everything and attached to nothing. Open up to Delerium and keep in mind it's hard not to get attached... Nuages du Monde is the best yet.

...after their last disaster, CHIMERA, which, aside for a couple of songs, is best forgotten (see my review).

NUAGES DU MONDE is still not up to KARMA's level of outstanding mix of songs and ambient/electronic music but it's a step in the right direction. There's only one bad song in the lot and it's "Lost & Found", which I don't even listen to. But all the others range from very good to excellent, with my favorite being "Extollere" "The Way You Want It To Be" "Self-Saboteur" "Indoctrination" "Sister Sojourn Ghost" and "Apparition".

Though a tad uncharacteristically DELERIUM-like, "The Way You Want It To Be" is probably the best song of the entire album. The great thing about it is the singer's voice, which is very androgynous and gives a really unique sound/feel to what would have probably sounded ordinary if the song had been sung by someone with a clearly feminine voice.

"Extollere" is the one that I listen to a lot now. It's just pure DELERIUM. And would it be a DELERIUM album if it didn't include a song ("Self-Saboteur") with the great Kristy Thrisk? "Self-Saboteur" lyrics are very good and so true. And "Apparition" is strikingly melodious in its melancholy. A great way to end the CD.

What's funny about NUAGES DU MONDE is that DELERIUM are sampling their past songs/sounds. Are they running out of ideas? Or are they simply telling us disgruntled fans of CHIMERA that they heard us and these samples are just little winks at us? I dunno. I don't mind the sampling at all. I just hope they're not running out of ideas...

Anyway, I'm glad I purchased this album. The album's name, NUAGES DU MONDE is cool and very accurate. I listen to songs from it almost every day. Great job, guys.

A reviewer on a different website described this as "sonic wallpaper" and, yes, that's how it sounded at first. However, after subsequent listens, every song began to develop its own personality and I can now say that I think this is their most polished work yet. Is it their best? I don't know, maybe. My favorite Delerium tracks are all on previous albums - nothing here is on par with A Poem for Byzantium, Just a Dream, Enchanted, or Inner Sanctum - but there are some real gems here. Tectonic Shift is amazing and conjures up images of forgotten eras; Fleeting Instant and The Way You Want It To Be are poetic explorations of sadness and sorrow; Self-Saboteur and Lost and Found have catchy hooks that will have you singing along; Extollere is pure musical sunshine; and opener Angelicus is a journey through sound, carried by the enchanting vocals of Isabel Bayrakdarian. I could do without the grating vocals on Indoctrination (maybe that vocalist would've been put to better use on a slower piece), and it would be nice if Lumenis had some direction, but the album is great as a whole and hasn't left my CD player for months.