Loreena McKennitt - The Mask And Mirror

1994 album reissued on limited edition 180-gram vinyl!

"I have come to use the pan-Celtic history, which spans from 500 BC to the present, as a creative springboard", says Celtic singer-composer Loreena McKennitt. "The music I am creating is a result of travelling down that road and picking up all manner of themes and influences, which may or may not be overtly Celtic in nature. With The Mask And Mirror I began my journey in Galicia, the Celtic corner of Spain, and I moved on from there as I continued on my own historical and musical pilgrimage."

Self-produced and boasting an exotic palette of instrumentation from cello and uillean pipes to dumbeg, tabla and oud, Loreena's fifth album was released in 1994 and has since sold several million copies worldwide.

The Mask and Mirror contains songs that lift the veil to reveal the soul of McKennitt's work in eight dream-like, Celtic inspired tracks. The opening track, "The Mystic's Dream" (featured on the TNT movie "The Mists of Avalon"), is a haunting tune that features McKennitt at her most heavenly peak as a vocalist, evoking the spirits of the instruments and Gregorian chant-like background vocals that accompany her on the track.

Spanning Spanish, Celtic and Moroccan influences, the album follows paths of inspiration from Ireland to Santiago de Compostella to the Middle East. Accompanying musical settings of poems by St. John Of The Cross and Shakespeare are eclectic, richly-textured originals including the seductively dramatic "The Mystic's Dream" and "Marrakesh Night Market".