The first is Insight (with a great cover art) which judging from the samples is very much about slightly awkard ambience and haunting string rumbles creating a thick atmosphere. The occasional piano and brass moment breeze in but one of the main effects used is the one of reversed broken glass. Lisa’s vocals do make occasional appearances but not often.

The second is Oranges and Sunshine which feels more melodic and centers around piano and string interaction with other tuned percussive instruments dropping in and out. This feels like the most straightforward soundtrack Lisa has done to date by the way how you actually hear a tune throughout and recurring motifs.

Both scores are available on Lisa Gerrard’s website.

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!

01) Brendan Perry (3 months!)

02) Keith Burgan & Blake Reynolds (NE)

03) Tom Salta (NE)

04) Hideki Sakamoto (-)

05) Lisa Gerrard (v)

06) Jesper Kyd (-)

07) Garry Schyman (v)

08) Ayumi Hamasaki (v)

09) Normand Corbiel (^)

10) Yoko Shimomura (RE)

Top 5 Games

01) RTL Winter Sports (2 Months)

02) Vancouver 2010 (NE)

03) Battle Tanks (-)

04) Musaic Box (-)

05) Numblast (RE)

01) Brendan Perry (2 months)

02) Lisa Gerrard (^)

03) Naoyuki Hiroko (Halo Legends Crew) (v)

04) Hideki Sakamoto (NE)

05) Garry Shyman (NE)

06) Jesper Kyd (-)

07) Ayumi Hamasaki (RE)

08) Hiroki Kikuta (RE)

09) Jeff Kinney (NE)

10) Normand Corbeil (NE)

—-

Games

01) RTL Winter Sports 2010 (ps3) (2 months)

02) Heavy Rain (PS3)

03) Battle Tanks (ps3)

04) Musaic Box (PC)

05) .detuned (PS3)

“Red Horizon” is a very controlled, sweeping piece of music. Using organs and keyboards to gently roll you away, its like being lifted into a horizon of a sunset. It’s quite capitivating as Lisa’s vocals are just ambient moans and this is very much of what Lisa has been doing for a while, but just feeling a little more darker. “The Messenger” is particularly eerie. Using dischordant piano riffs and echoes against an electronic percussive harshes, Lisa mutters and stumbles over the haunting background and although it never breaks out into a frenzy (although the middle of the song does ramp up), it holds a certain shiver to it that keeps you completely held in its aura it gives off. Unsettling yet captivating.

“Tell it From The Mountain” continues the electronic element in an upbeat chant that is fantastic as its a real song again and has a start, middle and end to it. It’s like Lisa has reembraced song structure again and this really has enhanced the album no end! When it breaks out into its refrain, the strings, drums and Lisa’s ever staggering vocals really shine as a highlight and then to have it blur into guitar ambience for a coda is just thumbs up all round. It’s great to have Lisa trying new things. A real highlight.

“In Search of Lost Innocence” is very cinematic. Lisa’s low register here is like Earth’s belly rumbling from way deep down under the surface. The smashing timpani’s ontop of the brass really add to the atmosphere as the track subsides to more eerie higher pitched vocal empathies. “The Crossing” is very ambient and electronic indeed. It has a great percussive side to it and echoing Lisa’s vocals to the background while all kinds of industrial bangs and twangs take the forfront really takes this track on a different journey than most of the others – like taking a tribe into a factory. It’s also nice to hear the Yanquin again no matter how distorted and brief.

“Redemption” harks back to earlier times with a synth/vocal powerhouse track. It is slow, deliberate and utterly heartwrenching. The dualing ominous low key vocals are particularly haunting and just the little cymbal rolls in the background really round off this track as like it takes place in another world and time demension – something very few artists can do and Lisa does so effortlessly.

“The Serpent & The Dove” is very different track for Gerrard featuring real words and an acoustic guitar melody underpinning the track. It’s really quite interesting to note that Lisa can hold your attention in English just as much as in her own language. This track is quite solomn and rested, almost like someone is reading out a prologue to the last millenium. Everything despite being quite soft carries a certain weight to it that makes it feel like you’re being privvy to secrets yet to be told. “Black Forest” continues the English word with a beautifully apocalyptic waltz of love. For the first time really using almost a band or regular instruments, the piano, bass and drums sound normal and then Lisa’s voice comes in and it all sounds bizarrely alien. That sounds like a bad thing, but I assure you its not. It’s like the previous track, feeling like a higher state of being has graced us to tell us something of importance. The melody here stands out as being sleepy-dead, like Lisa’s on her last legs. The ending is more spirited but its the music doing all the work as Lisa laments “You don’t love me”

“All Along The Watertower” is a first for Lisa ever – a cover! Originally by Bob Dylan. Here is where Lisa is singing and musically pounding her way. The song sounds like something Lamb would have done in their “What Sound” era. Funky guitars, smashing drums and Lisa’s vocals as crystal clear and forceful as they’ve been all album, this is really something I’d love to hear her do more often as her voice suits it. It’s a new style for her to get her teeth into an bring to her albums hopefully.

“Solace” is very biblical sounding. Just lamenting vocals and organs. It’s an understated beauty in an album full of big pieces and that makes it’s presence felt all the more. “The Maharaja” is another track that is deliberate in its manner and the background ambience of birds and various other animals that floats in and out gives it a broken paradise feeling because the songs chords are very subdued but then you can hear chirping birds. It’s a unique paradox.

The album closes with “Sleep” which if you bought the Dead Can Dance live tour CD’s, will be known to you before as “Hymn of The Fallen”. It’s great to have a studio recording of this track. It’s an utterly beautiful track. Just piano and vocal  – it’s flawless in its delivery and its an apt end to what has been a real powerhouse return to form for Lisa Gerrard.

However, if you have the Limited Edition it doesn’t stop there. There are seven more tracks to get to grips with, however the most annoying thing is that they are on a DVD so how I’ll ever get them onto my mp3 player and my music hard drive is currently beyond me! I have Bjork DVD singles with the b-sides on and I can never listen to them! Any help would be well recieved!

“The Aftermath” is an ambient piece that swirls and numbs before fading away. “The Black Opal” see’s Gerrard read a poem over gentle twinking music but the subject matter is so far removed from the background, and Lisa’s spoken word so monotone and whispery, its like listening to the opening of Lord of the Rings! A great extra.

“Desert Song” is not the Dead Can Dance song, its another etheral piece of music with added electrical pulses and beats. It does sound like a lost extra from a movie but as a bonus track everything is always welcome and it does build into a nice new age track with a good beat and Lisa’s elongated moans rippling throughout – very Silver Tree.

“The Gardener” is another spoken word track with syntherised background music that adds to the atmosphere. These spoken word tracks are a surprise as I usually don’t like them as they come off too pretentious, yet because the music, here especially, really fits perfectly, it doesn’t sound overdone at all – its like an audiobook. “Ocean Lament” reminds me of Whale Rider with its production as Lisa’s voice becomes both fore and background notes. “Solemn March” is a synth orchestra piece that leads into a traditional Gerrard song of the last 10 years and then “Impermanence” ends the bonus track selection with a very short vocal only collage. There is a beautiful and quite effecting music video for “The Serpent and the Dove” as well which initially is quite slow and beautiful but it lures you in for the final section.

Overall, the bonus tracks are nice but the right tracks are on the album. “The Black Opal” is by far Lisa’s best solo album of the last 10 years, definately on par with Duality and some tracks easily rival the best she’s created. This is a powerhouse welcome return to form. Welcome back Lisa.

Top 10 Artists

01. Brendan Perry (^)

02. Naoyuki Hiroko (Halo Legends crew)  (NE)

03. Cris Velasco (NE)

04. Lisa Gerrard (^)

05. Garry Schyman (NE)

06. Jesper Kyd (RE)

07. Yoko Shimomura (NE)

08. Imogen Heap (v)

09. Panda Transport (NE)

10. Akira Yamaoka (v)

Top 5 Games

01. RTL Winter Sports 2010 (PS3)

02. Vancouver 2010 (PS3)

03. Musaic Box (PC)

04. Numblast (PS3)

05. Zoocube (PS2)

The next week may be a bit sporadic due to my own album being released this week but after that its back to usual!