Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell – Burn

Atlantic Curve

I’m loving this album’s cinematic sizzle, the slow sanguine accompaniment that grows round Lisa Gerrard’s voice, full of subdued simmer and deep-diving delight, then the drums kick in and spread the panoramics wide open. Rocky adrenalines that sparkle the headphones surrounded in quantising amber and torn turquoise, an aesthetic that has me hopelessly hooked as doubled-up gusts of echo breathe from within.

The sumptuous swirls of “Heleali” are something of a baptism too, tapering in turretting tease, opening out to “Noyalain”’s Eastern flavours, all baritone-shadowed to this sycamore-scything, tail-spun of melody. I can’t imagine what a daunting prospect it was to match that vocal intensity, but Jules Maxwell offsets it beautifully, coats her soaring shapes in a buttery magnificence. Their curving flow is saturated in re-fuelled lunge and tempo-trickling wash, the harmonic arpeggios and splashy percussives of “Deshta” weaving effortlessly through her spiralling majestics.

For everybody that thinks Lisa’s talents have be hiding behind a soundtrack bustle for too long, Burn demonstrates some serious vocal returns and reinstates a bright compelling presence that mirror-bounces the canvas, continuously folds to those tantalising shifts of pace and texture Jules is brewing. Attentive details that crack open in radiant waves as both sides of the musical equation quill the equilibrium, flourish-fire the tangle.

That nibbling progressive that shadows Gerrard’s anchoring arcs on “Orion”, all shimmer-shot in circling fragmentaries and melodious swells that constantly explode in triumphant chromatics, the glitterati uplift of “Keson” (a serious contender for a classy perfume ad, methinks) nourishing the comforting warmth of Lisa’s chants. Burn’s contours may be less nomadic than the ethnic riches of Dead Can Dance’s last album, but they still manage to (con)spire, convincingly conjure something really special.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-