Customer Reviews

Parallel Dreams

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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While perhaps not as well-known as her later releases, "Parralel Dreams" is still my favorite Loreena McKennitt CD. True, the production values are not as lush and exotic as her "The Mask and Mirror" and "The Book of Secrets" albums but in these songs her voice and harp are highlighted to hauntingly beautiful effect. While tackling such bleak themes as lost love, murder, homelessness, and torture, each song is sung with an emotional radiance that can send shivers down your spine and warmth into your heart. As Loreena says in her liner notes, "If there is a recurrent thread that runs through these dreams [songs], it is one of yearning toward love, liberty and integration." Now that the CD has been remastered for better sound quality AND includes a free DVD as well, no true Loreena McKennitt fan should be without this album. The DVD consists of a 30-minute short in which Loreena discusses her music and inspiration, 2 music videos, and selected musical samples from her albums. This DVD satisfies my (parallel?) dreams of both hearing and seeing LM doing what she does best. I've upgraded to this new edition; get yours while you still can!

Lorenna McKennitt is the Celtic Queen of the 21st Century. She links us to the romantic, sad, and tragic Celtic tradition with a contemporary flair. She rearranges traditional Irish folk songs and also writes contemporary works that hark back to that age.

In "Samain Night" and "Moon Cradle" she displays her considerable musical talent with her hauntingly beautiful voice and superb pacing of lyrics. Like the great Jazz vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald, or the super-star Joni Mitchell, Loreeena's control and pacing is fantastic causing the listener to hold their breath with each pause.

In "Huron Beltane Fire Dance" we are treated to a contemporary tune with Irish undertones.

In "Annachie Gordon" this traditional work is not rushed but is fully developed over 8 minutes, as Lorrena weaves a tale of love for a handsome young poor man, Annachie, by Jeannie. Jeannie's father insists she must marry a rich man rather than the pretty poverty stuck Annachie. Jeannie argues with her parents but they insist she marry. After the marriage she refuses to sleep with the Gentelman she marries and she warns her family that she will die if she can not love Annachie. As her brides maids undress her for the bridal chamber, she falls dead from a broken heart. When the maids tell Annachie he rushes to her body, kisses her cold lips, and then also dies of love. Wow! These folks knew how to love didn't they? At least Romeo and Juliett had poisons and swords. McKennitt's treatment of this song is very straight and traditional without irony but rather as a soft tale of love's power.

"Standing Stones" is actually a ghost story as young lovers part in the night and as the male lover returns home a dark figure jumps him and stabs him in the heart. As the female lover reachers her home, she sees an apparition of him holding his wet chest and pointing to the stars above as he vanishes in the mist.

"Dickens' Dublin (The Palace)" is an odd but interesting piece. While Loreena sings a sad tale of a poor young homeless woman, an Irish waif recites the Christman story with emphasis on the stable shelter where Mary and St. Joseph seek refuge so that she might bear the Christ child.

"Breaking the Silence" evokes the theme of freedom for oppressed people and is devoted to Amnesty International.

"Ancient Pines" is from the film "Goddess Remembered", and evokes the theme of the earth's final release from the torments of the human race upon its resources and beauty.

The CD is very even in tone and mood, allowing you to dream and drift as she goes from song to song. Her incredible Celtic voice pierces your heart but her delivery could sooth a restless sea.

That voice...that harp....pure heaven. Loreena McKennitt's 1989 album "Parallel Dreams" is a very beautiful album, featuring such haunting, atmospheric, magical songs as "Samain Night," "Annachie Gordon," "Ancient Pines," and my personal favorite, "Standing Stones." Once again, Loreena simply casts a spell over the listener, with her goddess-like voice, harp-playing, and musical arrangements. "Parallel Dreams" is an excellent disc.

It is with this album that McKennitt's awesome talent as a composer/arranger truly finds that distinctive voice--somewhere in between Celtic, jazz, folk and world music--that is so prominent and beloved in her later work. Most of the music and some of the lyrics as well on "Parallel Dreams" are written by McKennitt in their entirety rather than being arrangements of traditional tunes or poems. There's still a sense of quiet restraint about many of the songs on this album, but this time it's underlain by a pregnant intensity of synth chords and percussion, released into the music just enough to give it an air of mysterious purpose without overwhelming McKennitt's ethereal vocals and nuanced harpistry. Guest musicians include Rick Lazar on udu drum and congas, Ratesh Dasj on tablas, guitarist Brian Hughes, violinist Oliver Schroer, cellist, bass and tamboura player George Koller, mandolin-player David Woodhead, piper Patrick Hutchinson, percussionist Al Cross, and Shelly Berger on pzud. Loreena McKennitt's previous album is "To Drive the Cold Winter Away," and the next one in the sequence, continuing her intriguing development as a composer, is "The Visit." I love everything she's ever done-- she's as true a talent and as creative a genius as you could ever wish for in a musician. But what impresses me most about her is how stirringly and satisfyingly her work has evolved over the years. She just keeps getting better and better! Try also the Celtic / folk / world music stylings of singer and multi-instrumentalist Kate Price and the work of dreamy vocalist / pianist Lydia McCauley.

Loreena McKnnitt's voice is superb and so poetic on this CD. As all the other CD's of Loreena McKennitt's, the music and her voice is inspiring and beautiful. For anyone who loves the haunting melodies of Celtic music, Loreena McKennitt CD's are a must.

This CD was so enchanting that I would feel so relaxed when I listened to it. I just love it!! I recommend it to anyone who is always stressed out and needs some realxing music. This is your ticket to relaxation. Enjoy!! :)

Loreena McKennitt.....even thinking or saying her name is "romantic", (sounding perhaps like someone from a great gothic novel from the past, perhaps a name long ago associated on the stage or something, Arthurian, perhaps.)

And, in truth, romantic, mystical, Celtic, etc, certainly DO apply here in her case. If you are familiar with her already, then you know what I refer to. If you ARE NOT familiar with her, by all means, stop "starving" yourself for great etherial Celtic strains to pass over your ears.

I discovered McKennitt several years ago, and have all her albums. ALL of them are truly excellent, very great musical "journeys" for your mind and soul. This album is, as most of them, a wonderful, growing thing...that becomes more deeply connected with you with each listening. She is SO VERY DIFFERENT, her output is simply magical, and there is no way your mind heart and soul will not be "glad" or "thankful" that you purchased this album.

Every piece on this album is great, impossible, really, to single any of them out. This disc, as all her albums, is, again, a homogenous piece, all songs feeling like they are related to each other.

This would be a good album for one to start with if you are unfamiliar with her, it is particularly satisfying on the ear, and will give you a good intro to Loreena McKennitt and her music.

Pick up a copy and take it home and relax, perhaps with the lights lowered, and let this music sooth and calm you, and believe it or not, heal you from the day's hectic bruisings. ~operabruin

This is but another Loreena McKennitt piece of music where you have to ask yourself, "How is her voice so beautiful?" However, I still think Book of Secrets is by far her best piece of work. This cd is very good and, as always, the songs are made more beautiful by her exequisite voice; I just didn't think the songs themself were as pretty as those in Book of Secrets.

i totally recommend loreena mckennit's music. i now own 4 of her cd's and i have bought extras as gifts. a must have cd