Description

earman143 – Lucette Bourdin – Horse HeavenLucette Bourdin is clearly in a zone. How a solo artist can so prolificallycreate album after album of pure beauty, without ever taking her eye off theball, is quite beyond our capacity to explain or understand. But createcopiously she does, her standard of excellence never wavering, her music everenchanting the listener. And the latest in her sequence of ambient masterpiecesis this delightfully mysterious album called “Horse Heaven”.Knowing Lucette as we do, we might be tempted to offer an opinion as to thethematic content of this release. But we would be wrong to do so, because at thevery least we would assuredly miss the mark. As with all of her creations, bothmusical and otherwise, there are multiple facets and numerous ways to interpretthe meanings and messages she embeds within. Any one particular reading of herintent might be correct, as far as it goes, but cannot describe the piece in itsentirety, for to do so would require the work to be considered from allperspectives simultaneously. To us, this is the definition of an enduring workof art: a piece that never fails to enlighten, one in which new details andideas never cease to be found. And make no mistake: “Horse Heaven” shall endure.Nevertheless, certain conclusions can safely be drawn.One is that this album is possibly the most mystical of Lucette’s releases, acollection of what we can only describe as ineffable prayers to the cosmos.Behind its subtle refrains, we can hear elements of both longing andcontentedness, of both the organic and the celestial, of both the human and thedivine, almost like the soundtrack to an out of body journey through the upperregions of space. To call the music radiantly gorgeous is to understate thecase.Another conclusion we can make is that this release is powerfully visual. Onecan imagine laying on a warm blanket somewhere in the deep desert beneath amidnight canopy of stars blazing across the great sky river. After listening toa few minutes of “Horse Heaven”, we are instantly transported there in a veryreal sense, the slow march of the heavens across the sky in perfect harmony withLucette’s sound sculptures and compositions. We listen to a lot of space music,folks, but we are very hard pressed to think of another album that so gloriouslyand triumphantly evokes the night sky.A final conclusion that we will draw is that this must be one of Lucette’s mostintimate releases, one in which her true self is most clearly exposed and givenwillingly to the listener. Again, we might be tempted to interpret this for you,but we’ll simply say that there is so much emotion and profoundness in this workthat at the end it seems we know Lucette much better than we did at the start,as if we have made an achingly beautiful journey through the heart of a trueartist and wise soul.For we believe that “Horse Heaven” may possibly be Lucette’s magnum opus, andcertainly one of the most reflective and spiritual albums she has ever created.More than once, we found our eyes welling up with tears at the beauty and powerof this simple music, and we think that you may well experience the same. Analbum we are very grateful and proud to bring to our listeners, this is simplyone of the top releases of 2010. In our view, nothing less than music for theages.As always, all Earth Mantra releases are available under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license. For commercial use,please contact us.—Music written, recorded, and produced by Lucette Bourdin.Artwork also by Lucette Bourdin.Released in August 2010.Released under the “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0Unported” license, which allows and encourages free use of this material so longas certain conditions are met. Details of this license can be found at:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/—earman143 – Lucette Bourdin – Horse Heaven65:42 – 155 MB01 – Inner Vastness (9:58, 23.3 MB)02 – product of Nectar (6:57, 16.3 MB)03 – Fearless Light (7:09, 16.7 MB)04 – The Luminous Ocean (10:16, 24.0 MB)05 – Dweller in the Infinite (9:17, 21.8 MB)06 – The Unnumbered Stars (6:37, 15.5 MB)07 – Celestial Winds (9:01, 21.1 MB)08 – Mystic Horse (6:27, 15.1 MB)Bit rate – 320kbs