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Loreena McKennitt
An Ancient Muse (Quinlan Road)
By: Scott D. Lewis
 Like a great film or book, music should be transportive ? it should
take you away to another place. Pop music rarely does this, new age
fails by trying to take you to a place that is dull and unrealistic and
a lot of world music fails by its lack of adventure. Strangely, music
that melds those elements, such as Dead Can Dance and Peter Gabriel?s
Real World efforts, can be more powerful than astral projection. Few
are as fine at this trick than Loreena McKennitt, the Canadian-Celtic
singer/harpist/composer who returns after nearly a decade with An
Ancient Muse. Much of McKennitt?s more popular work has centered on
Middle Eastern themes and textures, and she maintains her fascinating
fascination with the region here and continues to all but ignore the
harp. Instead, players use exotic instruments such as kanoun, hurdy
gurdy, tabla, oud, bouzouki, nyckleharpa, lyra, etc. to weave a
tapestry of ancient, mysterious and haunting sounds over which
McKennitt, with her nimble, angelic voice, chants and sings poetics
from and inspired by a cast of renowned literary figures. But An
Ancient Muse isn?t simply for the NPR crowd. With understated drums and
distorted guitar, ?Beneath a Phrygian Sky? possesses an eerie, epic
quality not unlike Sin?ad O'Connor?s more majestic musings while
several other tracks come off like a better-studied Enya. While An
Ancient Muse doesn?t really break any new ground for McKennitt, it
certainly isn?t simply repeating herself. Rather, she driving further
into the literary, musical and magical traditions she is drawn to, and
if you have the patience, she?s more than willing to take you along.
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