Lisa Gerrard - The Mirror Pool (Repost)

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Lisa Gerrard - The Mirror Pool (Repost)

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In collaboration with Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard is half of the duo Dead Can Dance, which started releasing arty goth rock on the 4AD label in the mid-'80s. Gerrard began her solo career with the 1995 release The Mirror Pool, which contained a lot of work that wouldn't fit comfortably into the DCD oeuvre. Combining these fragments with music that she composed and arranged digitally before reconfiguring them into scores that could be performed, it also draws on a composition by Handel and traditional Iranian music. Recorded and produced largely at her home in rural Australia, it extends the world music inclinations of recent Dead Can Dance albums by featuring bouzouki, tablas, and camel drums; though the somber, orchestrated pomp of Dead Can Dance is also present in her operatic, often wordless vocals, and string/woodwind passages (some of which were performed by Australia's Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra).

About the album's title, Gerrard explained: " If you read about African music, they believe that during the process of making this music that you come into contact with spirits from another plane. They say that this place is like a mirror of the world we live in, […] With the best music, you don't find the composer or the musicians within the work, you find yourself, your own feelings. "[1].

The repertoire of this album spans seven years from 1988 to 1995[2], featuring some of her material not worked into Dead Can Dance albums, as explained by Gerrard: " There is usually a surplus of work that overlaps the continuous nature of a Dead Can Dance record. Some of these pieces, which were not realized for reason of continuity, have been collected together in the form of largely orchestral-based works and pieces written primarily for 'voice' music. '"[3].

* "La Bas" refers to French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans's controversial 1891 novel Là-Bas (Down There)[2]; a main character is the bell-ringer Carhaix from Brittany, obsessed with legends of prophetic bells[4], echoing the fabled bells of the drowned cathedral of Ys in Brittany.

* "The Rite" was taken from Gerrard's libretto for a 1991 production of Oedipus Rex[2].

* "Persian Love Song" is a traditional piece from Shiraz in southern Iran, arranged by Lisa Gerrard. It was previously performed in concerts by Dead Can Dance and eventually included on their 1994 live album Toward the Within.

* "Sanvean" was written in September 1993. It too was previously performed in concerts by Dead Can Dance and eventually included on their 1994 live album Toward the Within.

* "Largo" is the opening aria from Handel's opera Serse (Xerxes), a popular composition titled "Ombra mai fu" but usually nicknamed "Largo" (despite being larghetto).

* "Laurelei" is a variant spelling of the Lorelei Rhine Maiden, so as not to conflict with a fellow 4AD's Cocteau Twins song.

* "Celon" was written a few days before Gerrard gave birth to her daughter: " […] there's this weird thing that takes place, thinking about procreation, sex, and death – you get very morbid just before you have a baby. "[2]. The River Celon is a fictional river in J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology.

The tracks "La Bas", "Celon" and "Gloradin" were also used for the 1995 Heat soundtrack.