Loreena Mckennitt Visit

Loreena McKennitt's fourth release, and first for a major label, is a quietly majestic tapestry of worldbeat and Celtic pop that effortlessly weaves together traditional and contemporary songs into lush showcases for her fluid voice and harp. The multi-talented Canadian utilizes all of her strengths here, resulting in her most rewarding batch of tunes to date. With larger production values and more ambitious arrangements than the sparse Elemental and Parallel Dreams, her flair for the dramatic and the theatrical runs rampant throughout. Whether she's toasting the souls of the departed with Pagan glee on the delicious "All Souls Night," or reinterpreting King Henry VIII's "Greensleeves" through Tom Waits, it's never without both feet in the water.

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt is one of Canada's most beloved national artists, a folk chanteuse, and a new age troubadour who made her breakthrough in the mid-'80s with her literate and oft-experimental focus on Celtic-tinged traditional and original material, coupled with her haunting harp playing. As her career progressed, McKennitt began incorporating Spanish, Galician, and Arabic themes into her repertoire, culminating in a trio of career-defining albums – The Visit, The Mask and Mirror, and The Book of Secrets – that made her an international star. McKennitt went on a long hiatus after the tragic death of her fiance in 1998, but returned to the studio in 2006 with the acclaimed The Book of Secrets, followed by a string of EP's and concert and studio albums, with highlights arriving via 2010's trad-Celtic LP The Wind That Shakes the Barley and 2018's inward looking Lost Souls.

Nights from the Alhambra chronicles ethereal Canadian Celtic/folk/worldbeat artist Loreena McKennitt's 2006 tour in support of her Ancient Muse album. Recorded in September in the Palace of Charles V at the Alhambra, a southern Spanish fortress on the eastern border of the city of Granada built by the Moors, McKennitt employed a 12-piece band that included hurdy-gurdy, oud, uilleann pipes, kanoun, strings, and multiple percussion players. Though there is an emphasis on works from her most recent release, the singer/composer/harpist covers a wide breadth of material from 1985's Elemental ("She Moved Through the Fair") to 1991's acclaimed Visit ("All Souls Night," "Lady of Shalott") and beyond. As with all of her studio recordings, the sound quality is exquisite, making this – her third live collection – the best yet.

Parallel Dreams, the Canadian harpist/songwriter's quietly moving sophomore release, finds the mystical red-haired siren in true balladeer form. By far McKennitt's most romantic venture – the liner notes describe the project's central theme as a "yearning toward love, liberty and integration" – Dreams is more ambitious than her sparse, impeccably recorded debut, Elemental, tripling the amount of players and laying the groundwork for the immense scope she would go on to attain on future recordings. The heartbreaking trio of "Standing Stones," "Annachnie Gordon," and "Dickens' Dublin" – the latter features an effective radio-show sample of an unnamed Irish school child detailing the birth of Christ – stand among the artist's finest works, and the range and clarity of her voice is undeniably powerful. Parallel Dreams was an emotional and career-turning point for McKennitt, as her next recording would be the major-label spectacle The Visit.

Live in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts is an six-track mini-album of the Canadian singer, songwriter, accordionist, harpist, and pianist, Loreena McKennitt. It was recorded live in San Francisco during a concert at the Palace of Fine Arts, on 19 May 1994 and released 1 year later. Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Loreena McKennitt is one of Canada's most beloved national artists, a folk chanteuse, and a new age troubadour who made her breakthrough in the mid-'80s with her literate and oft-experimental focus on Celtic-tinged traditional and original material, coupled with her haunting harp playing.