Opening with the title track, mysterious keyboard synths and lonely piano plinks introduce you to the isolated side of the cd. A lone string filters through the haze before the piano’s main melody picks up and leads you through the track which is particularly dark.

“A Writer’s Dream” has a falling grace quality to it. It’s very orchestral and grande with its sweeping cymbals and strings with light piano scatterings. It leds perfectly into “Welcome to Bright Falls” which follows a similar pattern. The orchestra is very sincere in its tone, and the music reminds me very much of Heavy Rain’s score, if not a bit more thriller filmic. You can almost see a candlelight voyage through an empty house, or someone rummaging through old antique chests or something. “Vacation” follows the same premise with echoing high register piano however here you can hear various layers of dulled out piano underneath it. It makes for very solomn track especially coupled with the understated string section.

“Cross That River” is more dramatic and fast paced than the previous tracks. Low brooding strings and lots of tom drum slapping and cymbal smashing as the tension is cranked up. It soon dissipates into an ambient brood before returning at full pelt for its finale. “Waking Up to a Nightmare” sounds a bit like how I’d imagine a stringed Silent Hill track to sound like, it has a certain haunted Victorian feel to it without being cheesy. “The Clicker” is haunting but because it sounds so beautiful with such  delicate playing and when its playing downcast chords and is surrounded by all the other music on the soundtrack you get suspicious of its sweetness. “Deerfest” which deserves a track name award is actually a delicate aural piece of shimmering underplayed strings and minimal harp plucks. Very ambient but quite invitingly cold at the same time. It sounds almost Enya or Elvish like!

Sitting in the middle of the soundtrack is the almost 11 minute epic “Taken by the Night”. The track itself goes through several movements. One is a quiet piano/string section which quickly descends into a distorted twisted tone with lots of pulsing ambient percussive beats and swishing metalic noises. What does strike me here, as with most of the soundtrack, is that its a very quiet soundtrack. It’s quite introspective. Even the more dramatic tense moments are still not rip roaringly nutty. This is all about mood setting and lulling you into exactly where Petri Alanko wants to take you.
“On the Run” is a six minute track that is more rousing than the previous epic as its more orchestral and intricate. It follows a pattern of building up lots of stabbing and chord raising only to lead to empty swishes. Towards the end things get a bit more frought and tense and Petri does well to keep the tension rising step by step for six minutes! “Mirror Peak” is another track with different movements in it too – switching without warning between murmuring ambience to full on drama which works well but as with some of the these tracks, sometimes it works better having played the game to associate the changes with something.

“Tom the Diver” is a lovely track returning to the piano/string ensemble that is the core heart of the soundtrack and its where the strengths lie. Ever changing and evolving, its a joy to listen to. “The Night it All Began” starts off with dragged strings being pulled up and up to tense vibrato strings and eerie piano as each time the track goes round a new layer is added. “Bright Falls Light & Power” is another beautiful track that holds a certain tragic beauty that the vast majority of the CD possesses.

“Hunters” is the first track that enters in with a real bang with all kinds of percussion and bent string sections kicking off. Even in the bits when the percussion isn’t going hell for leather it still holds a menacing tone and underlaying evil and discomfort. “The Well-Lit Room” is adorable. There’s a warm to the piece that’s not shown in a lot of the soundtrack before this number and although it’s hardly a joyous track at all, to me this piece has more hope and potential for happiness in it than the rest put together.

The final two tracks are the dramatic “Water Pressure” which again shows of Alanko’s ability to write some really tense and dramatic scores to great effect, and “Departure” which is a slow and deliberate piano/ensemble piece.

“Alan Wake” is a soundtrack that is well constructed, underplayed and finds its beauty hidden in the quieter parts of its music. Petri Alanko has made a score that manages to keep a part of it hidden and that’s why on first play you might not really appreciate all it has to offer. This soundtrack is one that improves per listen and over time. You get used to feeling the depths and trodden paths its taken. Give it time and it will certainly reward you with some intimate music for you to feast on.

“Make Me Your Picture” is a great song, a stomping drum beat, strong hynpotic syntherizers and dreamy whispy vocal layers over the top. The song gives a great representation of the whole Huski sound as a whole and is great electro-pop rock with a twist.

The first of the two b-sides is “Interior Girl” which is catchy enough to be a single itself. It has a shimmy beat to it and a simple melody but with a chorus and great iteraction between three different vocal structures which when all working together in unison really push the song forward. There’s beauty sometimes in simplicity and this is a great example of it.

The second b-side is “Strange Love” which is a bit more 80′s experimental and showcase again how to make spangley explosive songs that still have a tinge of sadness and regret. I particuarly like how this track gathers pace without ever really having a proper drum track, its just lots of electronic pulses that push together. It makes for a refreshing sound.

You can pick up the single digitally still, and for any Huski or electro-pop music lovers, I heartily recommend it!

Opening with “Ex Nihilo Out of Nothingness” a soundscape is painted into the speakers with ambient swirls and distant echoing aural screams and chasms. There’s a lot of spoken dialogue overlapping eachother that creates a paniced confusion and the ambience swells and then fades away as we decend (or ascend) into our Departum. This is followed by the absolutely magical “In the Beginning Was The Word” which signals the return of the more tribal, eastern world of Lisa’s music that’s been absent for far too long. Sitar like changs, Eastern string bows and tribal percussion signal a march forward which then pulls away to a beautiful almost coming of age where the song rises into a momentous stride with Lisa’s voice and some lush tuned bell percussion pushed to the far. The drums continue to rise and rise, it’s such a burst of life, I actually found myself nodding and bowing my head on the first listen in general awe and approval!

“Hymns of a Promised Land” has a male (Marcello I presume) talking in the opening segment in distorted voices. Once his monologue finishes a sumptuous Lisa takes over with a very pure vocal / guitar track that is over far too quickly, almost like a healing chant. Simplistic but lovely. “Hidden Garden” see’s the return of the Yang Quin too, leading an instrumental as its echoes pulsate a lifeline through an Eden like ambience of animals and running water. Perfect for relaxation with an underlying murmer of pray it seems underneath. It’s quitely spiritual without pointing to a specific religion.

“Diary For the Fallen” reminds me slightly of Serpent and the Dove from The Black Opal with its gentle acoustic guitar initially leading the way over Lisa’s calming voice. Instead this track decides to build itself into an uplifting rousing tunnel of light for me in the choruses with its hugely panning tom drums and its warm keyboard work backing up Lisa as she soars and bellows for every piece of emotion. Think a slower Now We Are Free but with electric guitar at the end!

“Renunciation” is a short one minute track which carefully replays a string bending signiture that you’ll hear a few times in the album over sawing keyboard melodies while “Himalaya” is possibly the best 36 second track ever committed to CD! Why it wasn’t then extended into a full piece I’ve no idea, but we’ll have to live with what we have!

Title track “Departum” follows as the first solace moment really in its opening section, which mixes vocal traits from previous tracks with a new chord structure. Soon the keyboards and drums are bashing away with echoing Yang Quin and the whole thing sounds magical. It’s one of the most directly foot stomping, upbeat songs Lisa’s produced to date. As with a lot of “Departum”, it would work fantastically in any film montage or end credit sequence. “Maya’s Dream” is a short keyboard/distant vocal number that with its ever decreasing chords sink down sounds more haunting on each repeat.

“To Those Who Seek Forgiveness” is an epic piece. Lisa Gerrard sounds like she is channeling pain like a Japanese war crier weeping in desperation. It never ceases to amaze me how many forms and layers Lisa’s voice can take on. The woodwind and string samples in this track are particularly subdued to let the voice take absolute centre stage. “All Things Impermanent” is a short bowed string and mechanical noise piece that continues the same musical thread inbetween the full songs before the fantastic “River Dance” graces our ears. Nothing to do with Mr Flatley, this track sounds like an extra from Duality or the Baraka soundtrack. The drums, strings and tuned percussion make for a haunting and mysterious hypnotic dance. This is the track you hear in at the beginning of the albums trailer video. Lisa joins in at half way with lots of vocal ablibs as the song continues to build and build, a signiture of a lot of the songs on the album. Lisa here, and for a lot of the album sounds much more native and wild than she has done of late and it suits the music perfectly.

“Cor Nobilis The Gentle Ones” is more etheral with its guitars, higher and cleaner vocal delivery and dramatic strings. However it soon has the dramatic filmic drums added and develops into one of the best examples of why Lisa Gerrard is the pinnacle of what she does by being both everything and very fragile all at the same time. “Addagio for a Broken Promise” is the most sombre full length track on the album and it does sound like Lisa’s vocals have been given a bit of Cher’s Believe treatment! It’s very melodic and quite close in sound to Serpents Egg and sounds quite different to the rest of the album as a result. “Sacred Journey” takes the Yang Quin echoes from River Dance and overlays it onto a thunder storm and lots of paddling through water for an effective transitional track.

“The Secret Language of Angels” is the longest track on the album at over six minutes. Put simply the track encapsultes the whole albums essence in one track. From its hymn’s humming in the opening, slowly chant on chant, instrument on instrument build up layer on layer as you continue to rise to achieve a euphoric state of being. This song alone is worth the albums price and is along with a few other tracks on the album, competing for song of the year easily!

The CD album ends with “A Kingdom Now Forgotten” which is an aural treat almost like you’ve now reached your resting place and can now drift into the ether. It’s the most spiritual track with distant church bells and gentle sweeping choral melodies in the background.

If you have ordered the CD you’ll get two additional tracks in MP3 format however. “The Lost Star of Menelik” is a very Asian sounding track with a constant low sitaresque hum swirling around with Lisa freely singing over the top of it. It’s quite a spacious track that could pass as a morning raga perhaps and is very relaxing to listen to. The second track is “Let the Children Play” which sounds almost like its from a different album and session altogether with piano and samples guitar and sound loops of children as background noise. It’s a great little track and I wonder if maybe its actually from the Gaza project instead of Departum as there’s electronic synths running through the song too. However its melody is lushious and rewarding and the song structures great.

Quite frankly, when I heard The Black Opal, my review stated this was the album I’d been waiting from Lisa for years… I was wrong. “Departum” tops that album for me and is utterly mesmorising from start to finish. There is something about teamming up Lisa’s voice with world music that is built to explode for a finale and this album has worked that out a treat. Marcello has breathed new life into everything and now this is firm favourite to go head to head with Ark for my album of the year (and thus one of the best of the last 10!) Buy, buy, buy!

This is the fifth Tori Amos concert I’ve been to and this was possibly the most intense and enjoyable to date. With just a piano and a keyboard, she straddles her bench and plays both while howling her tunes with all the energy and empathy you could ask for.

Personal highlights included a haunting opening of “Bells For Her”, a very intense “Precious Things” a aching beautiful “Garlands”, the wails of “Hey Jupiter”, the foot stomping “Beauty of Speed” and a most fiery cover of “Personal Jesus”. However not one song went a miss and I was utterly captivated from start to finish.

If you ever want to see a singer/songwriter bare all on stage, take yourself to a solo Tori Amos concert and you will feel every minute of the road with her. Mesmerising.

The biggest change for me was the general direction of the piece. Where as Koyanisqqatsi made more landscape and time lapse photography, Powaqqatsi is dominated by humans. This leaves us with a sizeable proportion of the film staring into the eyes and faces of various cultures and nameless people. This makes the film much less passive and I recommend you need to really be in a specific mood to watch the feature as if you aren’t ready to engage it full on, it will completely miss you.

Some of the footage however is mesmorising. The opening segment in a Brazilian gold mine is mind boggling, seeing thousands of people in ant lines working together for a common goal tolerating all kinds of conditions. There is also a segment where various media adverts for perfect living a hammered at you. The way how it jars you and almost repulses you is quite genius. There is also a great short scene where a small child stops and stands aimlessly infront of a pro-war graffiti.

The music has a recurring theme in amoungst some great world music compositions from Glass and while its more diverse than its predessor, its actually more seemless and drifting so it doesn’t pull you right up and scream at you.

From the interviews that are on the DVD, Powaqqatsi is all about the southern hemisphere that is being eaten alive by the efforts of the Northern hemisphere’s daily procession. I found that angle on the film really quite intriguing and upon a second watch now knowing that knowledge, different symbolisms take on a new meaning for me. Powaqqatsi is not going to be any more accessable than Koyanisqatsi. I actually didn’t take as much away from it as the original, but it still packs a punch and left me feeling a bit more dismayed with the world as a whole but with feeling a need to change burning in the forefront of my mind and for that, it’s certainly done its job.

Starting off with the Paganfolk 2006 concert, we get a cameo from fellow styled band Omnia on the didgeridoo (plus Faun and Omnia teamming up for a bonus track which is fantastic) and some real feet stopping, atmosphere tingling performances, especially “Pungara” which is a personal favourite. What really stands out is just how multi talented all the band members are as they swap instruments, sing and bash their way through their songs to absolute note precision. The sound is of very high quality too which must have been a task recording all these live instruments. Also big thumbs up the stage design!

The Totem 2007 tour is the larger 50 minute concert and this allows the band to play a broader spectrum of their tracks. The fabulously empowering “Andro” is a powerhouse, as is the mesmorising “2 Falken” which blasts the speakers as sounds from past and present converge. “Rosmarin” has a slightly apocalyptic tinge to it with its extended closing melodies which are Faun’s equivilent of going mad for an encore. By the end of the song I was actually clapping and cheering in my own living room, having forgotten I was never there! Old favourite “Wind & Giege” is perfectly executed too.

The unplugged section is achingly beautiful. “November” sounds extra lonely when its stripped to just guitar, harmonium and voice, gently played under a tree. “KaRuna” is just pure melodic bliss and “2 Falken” stripped down to guitar/vocal is actually quite haunting and transforms the song into something completely different.

The interview is quite interesting, dealing with their fame, their motivations, how they found eachother and how things have changed over time. English subtitles are available thankfully if you don’t speak German!

“Ornament” is a fantastic live DVD. It’s individual segments combine to show you the in’s and out’s of Faun and I defy anyone not to listen to their music and fail to be swept away. Magic!

This film deals with “life out of balance” as is starts off showing various landscapes in awesome detail, cloudscapes rolling by and not a single human in sight. It then abruptly cuts to massive tractors upheaving the ground and large land explosions for oil and ore. The films relatively dream like for the first half hour as slowly more human contact comes into play and the film takes a more sinister turn of beauty.

Time lapse photography was new when this was originally released but you still haven’t seen some of the sheer beauty in the shots. The DVD cover shot of the moon rising is jaw dropping, the way how the world is almost ant-like in its daily precession is quite humourous and thought provoking at the same time and some of the people who are caught on camera just at certain points reveal in their face a certain freezeframe of their life in just a few seconds.

All of this is completely overscored by Philip Glass who’s music is every bit as important as the visuals on screen. The two melt into eachother perfectly, its really quite something. Some of the music is hypnotic, some of it grand in scale, some of it utterly maddening.

The final part of the movie which shows the Atlas-Centaur rocket exploding and falling to the ground is such a poignant section and really is the perfect part of the movie to assess exactly how open ended the film can be for people. Some people would be saddened, others strangely transfixed on the flaming beauty of it and others maybe proud of humanities attempts.

Koyaanisqatsi is designed to evoke, but never really tell you what to evoke and how and for that its one of the most personal and inspiring films to be seen and heard.

Made back in 1984/5 the 42 minute film is all about layers of time. You’re treated to jaw dropping time lapses of sun rises and shadow lights crossing over landmarks across the world. Stonehenge, Eypgt, Monument Valley, Pompeii – there’s just so many places that are showcased and all of them are stunningly beautiful.

The time lapse photography is intercut with slow overpasses of large desolate landscapes and some dreamy aerial shots. While all this is going on, Michael Stearns’ otherworldly score haunts you. Using syntherizers and uniquely built instruments such as the earth toned Beam, which has its own special feature on the DVD, the score is celestial and timeless all at the same time.

“Chronos” isn’t for everyone. It’s high art. It’s also a completely different tone to Baraka too, this is more of an introspective film. I found it very moving though and I can’t quite work out why. Maybe it’s the insignificance of myself as a single person in the layers of all the time that flows before you in this film, or maybe its just because so much of this beautiful world is not readily available it takes your breath away when you see it. Either way, Chronos has left its mark on me and if you’re prepared to give it a go, it may well do on you too.

The DVD starts off with a 20 minute documentary about how they made their third album and how they work to write songs as a band. It’s informative without ever being techy and shows off all their personalities nicely.

The concert kicks off with “Emergency” and what becomes apparent is how crystal clear Annette’s vocals are and just how busy Kip and Tony are switching instruments and twiddling knobs! The concert covers songs from across their entire career with personal highlights for me being “Hummingbirds”, “Yes & No”, “Mechanics & Mathemactics”, “Soul Sloshing” which has definately been sped up and “William’s Last Day At Work” but my favourite of the concert is the aching beautiful “Tell Me Secrets” which is the only real slow song in the concert and shows a completely different side to the band.

The DVD is about 90 minutes long and stick around after the credits for a beautiful improptu version of “Alice”. Venus Hum’s first DVD is great. You’ll be dancing around the T.V. singing along and catching the infectious joy that Annette especially seems to carry with her on stage. A great introduction and a must have for all fans!

“Awakenings” opens the album in what is a new tone for Sarah of late with more uptempo rock. Delicate electric guitars, speedy percussion, melodic keyboard riffs and soaring vocals. However come the chorus’ out comes the grungier guitars for real impact in a way we’ve not really heard Sarah record before. It’s still definately a McLachlan song, but just with a pinch of difference to it and its great, especially the closing section.

“Illusions of Bliss” reminds me of the Surfacing album, or maybe more of how “Solace” would sound with a full deep band rendition. The interplay of the piano and guitars and the vocal ad-lib quirks make this a wistful and playful track even if the overall tone is quite bittersweet. Single “Loving You Is Easy” is delightfully cheery and upbeat, almost like a stadium anthem with its stomping beat and rousing codas and choruses. “Changes” is equally skippy with its cute theremin solo in the middle that sounds like a bird whistle. It’s these little nuances that really signal a change in Sarah’s more band efforts to something else that makes this album a bit more unique.

“Forgiveness” is the first piano led ballad on the album and is painstakingly beautiful and effortless. As the song continues to be layered and built up, it becomes one of the more simple songs on the album tune wise but also one of the most instantly accessable and is a good point to start newcomers off with. “Rivers of Love” is a second piano based track but is the most bluesy track on the album with distant wails of guitars and waltzing drums elevating the track to something that could quite easily be a show stopper live – a real stand out on the album.

“Love Come” is a great pop rock tune with echoing guitar harmonics leading the main melody over an acoustic pop number. The result, as ever, means a smooth as baby’s botty production and another easy to remember, hard to forget middle of the road anthem again! “Out of Tune” is another rock anthem that is one of the most straight forward songs on the album and sounds like its came straight from the “Fumbling Into Ecstacy” album, which is where a lot of the songs sound like they could fit in easily. “Heartbreak” rounds off this trilogy with gusto and a guitar sounding more suspiciously like a ukelele at times!

“Don’t Give Up On Us” is a powerful rock ballad which will tug quite happily at all your heart strings, as will the rather annoyingly titled “U Want Me 2″ which is actually another slightly down in the mouth love song with a great piano riff that sounds really familiar but I can’t quite place it but then the song deviates off that to a more standard rock ballad again. It’s not that the track is bad by any means, but the piano riff sets you up for one thing, and then you get something else!

The final track “Bring On the Wonder” shifts tone completely to a fantastically aural song with harmonised vocals, piano and minimal anything else. There’s a great use of vocal breath in this track and its easily one of the best songs Sarah McLachlan has ever recorded. It just struck a real chord with me.

The deluxe edition has a piano version of “Love Come” which is great and gives the song a whole new twist and emotion. There’s also a bonus DVD with 5 faultless live performances in her house with an interview spliced throughout.

“Laws of Illusion” is easily worth the wait. It’s more of the same in some respects but everything has a new glean, spit and polish on it and this is easily the most joyous and happy album McLachlan has made. For that, it deserves a place in your CD collection without doubt.