| ISSUE
#43
November '02
The
Veil
is:
Margarita
Kovals: lyrics, vocals, synthesizer
Deirdre McCarthy:
vocals,
bodhran, doumbek, riq, ashiko,
zils, castanets, Moroccan bongos, tupan, drums
Mark Ungar: electric
&
acoustic guitars, vocals, bass, mandola,
mandocello, plectrum banjo, electric sitar, klong ya,
synthesizer
With:
Cat Taylor: electric
violin
Scott Irwin: drums
The CD is: Sophia
Speaks
A symphony grows
from a
single note...
Ancient mysticisms
lift
us up beyond life into the channeled past of
the future, offering religious incantations that challenge our mind
with the universal and
ageless questions of Shangri-La. The keys to heaven are held aloft as
the music cascades
over our body, drenching every pore and proclaiming the Goddess of
Music (in this case
named “Sophia”) is the
music of God.
Sophia
is the music, The Veil is
the vessel that delivers Sophia / the music / God to us and opens our
spirits to a
Zen-like state where we are blessed at a musical alter which connects
us to the euphorial
plane we all strive to reach in life, yet are only promised in death.
The opening title
track “Sophia Speaks”
subtitled “(A Translation)”
presents lyrics that explain the sanctity of pure love, the eroticism
of its sexual
connotations, the heaven God allows us to sample/enjoy here on earth,
and the lengths it
propels us to in order to achieve and preserve it. All presented in a
Mass-like atmosphere
as the music envelopes us with a Celtic - Mid Eastern style that stirs
the soul with an
ancient worship of love - obtained musically through “A
Translation” that
embraces all time, from past to present; calling forth Arabic, Native
Indian, Egyptian,
and Celestial implications into a fusion that will carry us dancing
forth into the inner
spiritual escape we lust after. Come, Listen, Sophia Speaks…
“My
Heart Is A Lion” explodes
with a marching band drumming that urgently drags us along on an
adventure punctuated by
the striking vocals of Deirdre. They
snatch our ears with a poetry slam
rap, marching us out to grab life and live it to our fullest abilities
– yet
it’s the Rounds that proclaim: “We’re
made of dreams, and myths and
love / Devine inside, stardust gathered from above”
that cast hope and doubt,
and sends us reeling
– for, does this song of Sophia (the music) present the power
of man to reject God?
Or, is it showing that at times man needs to believe in his own power
before he can accept
the God that has bestowed upon him the power to do so? In either case
it is the power of
the music that knocks us down and bowls us over along with Deirdre’s
incredible vocals that wail along side Mark’s
Guitar which wails,
and wails, WAILS!
Centering the disc,
“Beggar
Man” starts out like Take
A Pebble by EL&P, Dealer by Santana,
Babes In The Woods by Steve Miller, and Can’t Find My Way
Home by Blind Faith dropped
into Kashmir by Led Zepplin. (Hell about the only exotic instrument
curiously absent here
is the Hurdy Gurdy). A tale of 3 personas in every man, it cranks out a
guitar, drums, and
sitar jam that’ll just blow your aura to the outer limits. It
also acts as a catalyst
for:
“Fever Vision”;
A tale of torrid passion and bliss as experienced through a fever so
intense that the
hallucinogenic visions brought on, propel the narrator into a sustained
state of arousal
that defies explanation. Yet, when she finally arrives at the other
side of the time and
reality bending fever she finds that the object of this obsessive
eroticism is beside her,
having successfully nursed her through, with total representation
within the visions. A
Tour de Force that is highlighted by the intense spoken word vocal
delivery of Margarita,
and supported by Deirdre’s
backing vocals and powerhouse choruses.
Slipping in one
more
metaphor before the finale “Star
of India” recounts the late 60s
psychedelic era capitalizing on an
extended sitar solo as we are invited to take this trip while
it’s there (the Star of
India is not only an exotic cruise ship about to leave port, it is also
symbolic of
Sophia, of music), to decide that “There’s
no time to lose” and
“prepare for Xanadu.”
But Xanadu can be
defined
in as many different ways as there are
different cultures as there are different people. “A
Single Note”
begins with the end, a death, and the wait for rebirth. Using Deirdre’s
wailing chants behind Margarita’s
spoken lyric delivery the music
pushes us further and further along conjuring Mid eastern images of
tunic’s, belly
dancers, dust and sand. Ancient tales of surreal spiritual power evoked
through the hash
haze of hookah pipes relate that the cry of a newborn/reborn is the
single note that
propels the symphony of life.
And so, Sophia
speaks;
Beginning to end, end to beginning, completing
the cycle, handing us the keys to enter our Shangri-La through the
artistic God(dess) of
music.
Final
Note: Just as any escapism can be
addicting, so too can be music.
Sophia
Speaks by The Veil is
truly
an addictive work of art.
The Veil
- Sophia
Speaks
is available now for: $11.98 +s/h*
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