Loreena McKennitt will release “The Mask And Mirror Live” on June 14th. This is the live recording at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on May 19, 1994, originally intended for radio programming in the United States and Canada. The release celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of what, at the time, was McKennitt's newly released fifth studio album, “The Mask And Mirror”, which has now become a classic for its innovative mix of Celtic musical traditions and sounds of Southern Europe, North Africa and the Near East. It will be available in three formats: CD, 180 gram black vinyl and digital.
The 10 tracks on “The Mask And Mirror Live” include some of the Canadian artist's most beloved songs, including “Marrakesh Night Market”, “Full Circle”, “The Mystic's Dream” and “The Bonny Swans”.
Loreena McKennitt will embark on “The Mask and Mirror 30th Anniversary Tour” this summer through various European countries playing the album “The Mask And Mirror” in full. She will do 6 shows in Italy (tickets available on Ticketone) and the entire tour will end in Milan:
20 July – Bard (Ao), Bard Fort
21 July – Pratolino (Fi), MusArt Festival / Parco Mediceo
22 July – Rome, Rock in Rome / Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone
24 July – Udine, Castello
25 July – Merano (Bz), World Music Festival / Gardens of Castel Trauttmansdorff
26 July – Milan, Arcimboldi Theater Milan
During his recent “The Visit Revisited Anniversary Tour”, which visited ten European countries this spring, limited edition vinyl copies of “The Mask And Mirror Live” were available. Given its success, it was decided to accelerate the album's production schedule and add a CD version in time for the upcoming summer tour. The spring tour was a huge success with nearly all dates sold out and more than 60,000 tickets sold.
“I began this recording by traveling to the Galician or Celtic region of Spain and then to Morocco, Marrakesh, down in the desert, looking for inspiration. This took me into the music and literature of 15th century Spain, through the nuances of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, and I was dragged into a fascinating world: history, religion, fertile cultural contaminations”, recalls Loreena.
“The Mask And Mirror” has sold over one million copies in the United States and more than two million worldwide. It represented a turning point in McKennitt's career, as well as an incredible commercial success on four continents. It went platinum in Canada, Australia, Italy and the United States, as well as gold in Spain, France, Argentina and Germany.
“The Mask And Mirror” asks universal questions about the meaning of contamination between very distant cultures, through an evocative musical fresco of 15th century Spain. A spiritual and spatial research, therefore, narrated by the farsighted artist herself in a travel diary, present in her booklet: “Through Galicia, down into Andalusia, beyond Gibraltar to Morocco… The Crusades, the pilgrimage to Santiago “. A concept album profoundly literary, full of possible interpretations, like the great chivalric poems: it tells the story of that mercantile hub that intertwined the stories of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The synthesis is faithfully rendered by the rich harmonic structure of the songs: the already established soprano, refined and lyrical, who placed the folk heritage recalled by her Celtic harp on a cultured and courtly pedestal, also becomes an interesting and notable composer. In fact, concluding the delicate journey begun with the previous “The Visit”, the Canadian singer-songwriter manages to blend very peculiar instruments from the most disparate traditions, creating a happy amalgam of eclecticism, catchiness and popular research.
Here is the tracklist and cover of “The Mask And Mirror Live”
CD:
The Mystic's Dream (7:22)
The Bonny Swans (6:54)
The Dark Night Of The Soul (6:13)*
Marrakesh Night Market (6.45am)*
Full Circle (4:44) *
Santiago (5:24)
The Two Trees (6:48)*
Prospero's Speech (4:06)*
Huron 'Beltane' Fire Dance (5:57)*
Stolen Child (5:17)*
* Previously unreleased
Vinyl
Side A
The Mystic's Dream (7:22)
The Bonny Swans (6:54)
The Dark Night Of The Soul (6:13)*
Marrakesh Night Market (6.45am)*
Side B
Full Circle (4:44) *
Santiago (5:24)
The Two Trees (6:48)*
Prospero's Speech (4:06)*
* Previously unreleased
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM