Ecstasy found?

Author's Rating:

Pros: Depth and passion of spirit

Cons: Last Lilith Faire was ridiculously expensive.

Author's Review
An artist in the traditional sense, is someone who seeks to communicate to their audience in an oblique manner. Rather than standing, facing their mother or father, and stating anger, love or betrayal, or writing a letter telling a lover of their dissatisfaction or unhappiness, they produce a rather circumspect accounting of their feelings. Using musical keys and overdoses of the ubiquitous travelling companions simile and metaphor they attempt to craft from the void a portrait of sound, smell, and texture that conveys in ways that words alone might not, the depth of joy or despair they feel or wish to impart.

In the pop climate of course, expressing emotion is the exception rather than the rule. Rap and hardcore seems only capable of arousing aggression, country seems to have two speeds: betrayal or YEEEE- HAAwww. Bubble gum pop thinks it knows emotion but really can't get over how cute your blouse is and there are more Cures, Depeche Modes, and Nine Inch Nails every day fighting for your ennui dollar.

I like to imagine the musicians and producers sitting around listening to the final masters of this disc in 1993 and just staring in silence. As an artist, McLachlan must have been so very proud to hear the final results of this album. Fear, loneliness, self-doubt, longing, joy, fulfillment and even a few short stories are spun with clarity and vision on this masterful piece. To reach the listener track after track with the depth of emotion expressed within these12 songs (with one hidden acoustic reprise) is strong testimonial to the abilities of Sarah and her producer/svengali Pierre Marchand. You know those precious disc in your collection that stay in the player for months? That you leave on repeat. This is one of those.

The opening track, Possession, had a twisted path. It was based upon the letters to Sarah of a deranged fan who was becoming a stalker. This being 1992-1993 the term stalker was still new to the public at large, having come recently on the heels of the shooting death of young television star Rebecca Schaeffer by an obsessed fan. The song was so specific in similarity to his letters that the man brought civil suit against McLachlan alleging breach of confidentiality. No doubt the suit hinged on flimsy legal ground and was simply a ruse to gain McLachlan's attention.

We will never know, as the plaintiff committed suicide in the woods a mile from Sarah's home before the case could be resolved. Listening to the lyrics of this song bearing these things in mind brings a chilling picture to what is a very passionate and beautiful song. This is the signature song from the album, and was the most recognizable single. There is an acoustic version of this song as a mystery track several seconds after the last song.

The second track, Wait, is a story of incompleteness and longing brought on by loss. Delicate and tender, the music itself seems laced with remorse.

Plenty, which holds resonance with more and more people as I hear them discuss it, discovers the space and freedom given by uncovering an infidelity. A newfound sense of purpose that was never known before. As with most of Sarah's songs, Plenty does not state singly the emotion felt then explore it, but also travels along and witnesses what results from the experience as a whole.

For those who have watched someone for whom you care enduring an abusive relationship and wanted to stop the pain and end the suffering, replacing it with validation and unconditional love, Good Enough will have something to show you. This song underpins how heartrending this situation can be since unlike the positive mood it evokes, the reality is that these things rarely go well, or at least as well as we would like.

Mary reminds us that too often we forget in our search for love and validation that our mothers feel a loneliness we won't know until maybe we're there ourselves.

Elsewhere begs acceptance and understanding even though those who love us do not approve of our decisions. This is the point in the album where Sarah's voice becomes a most potent instrument. Previously she has sung beautifully and with sweet abandon, but from this point out her direction seems to be to blast emotion and feeling into your soul. Watch out. She's better than you expect.

Circles is a straight forward accounting of a love that brings heartache and sadness yet from which you cannot bear to separate yourself. Some very appropriate crunchy and distorted guitar work and an upbeat tempo separate this as a very traditional pop song in this disc's sea of rock/folk balladry and baroque-inspired slow rock.

Deception breeding deception is told of in Ice. This quiet song is laced with stumbling and tinny woodwinds trying to find their harmony, but seemingly giving in rather than continue fruitlessly. Simple and haunting.

Hold On is a musical short story of a woman watching her husband slip away from a terminal illness. She shares her hopes and prayers, and remembers the joy they brought each other. Not a maudlin song at all, rather a hopeful if melancholy piece on the perils of lifelong love and bonding. A singularly masterful song and one which never fails to elicit emotion.

Ice Cream is the happy and playful ode to a lover who brings happiness and contentment in ways that nothing else can. Even ice cream, seemingly. Hearing this song preformed live at Lilith Faire is a moment that will never leave me. If you have ever been at a live performance where the audience's voice overwhelms the singer's, you know who lovely it can be. But to be in the middle of an arena full of singers who are overwhelmingly female is another experience entirely. Seemingly a choir of angels sung to me, "Your love is better than chocolate, better than anything else that I've tried." I cannot even remember the moment without tears.

This album is a masterwork for such a young musician. There is a purity of vision and a majesty to the emotion brought forth in lyric and melody. Sarah's voice is radiant and piercing, fulfilling and ghostly. The stories and visions brought forth by this collection all walk the borders of the commonality of our own human experience. Mostly that of the need for acceptance and love from another. They range from indecision to resignation, all with a sense of hope, but desperation. Not pessimism, but forethought of the consequences of failure. The final movements of these glimpses are encapsulated magnificently within the final two tracks on the disc:

To fall in love so hard and so completely is to be fulfilled in ways you did not know possible, and to Fear that you cannot offer anything in return and lose what has become the most important thing you've ever known. This is fear of a new kind. Being paralyzed between words, knowing that an all- consuming love awaits you but the thought of losing it to your own inadequacies borders more upon terror than any pedestrian fear.

And finally to accept that loss is part of discovery and disappointment is part of fulfillment and that if we allow our fear to prevent us from committing to what we need most then we will never embrace happiness and joy. The road to this knowledge is rocky and perilous. It is one that though we all travel down, we must each make alone, and this then, is what it means to be Fumbling Toward Ecstasy.