Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131875 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2000-07-11
• Running time: 0 seconds

Customer Reviews

A" MUST HAVE" in your cd collection!
From the same artits who brought you: the very madrigal album "madra , 1991" , the little masterpiece "iris , 1992" , the unique and richly orchestrated "suspiria , 1993" , and the surprisingly diverse & baroque " fairytales of slavery ,1994"...are back with this very tortured/gothic & jazzy album called "carnival of souls , 2000". Only this time,with a different line up. katharine blake (vocals ,violin) , trevor sharpe (percussion , drums) and ben golomstock (guitars) are back for this latest brilliant album.

ex-members, contralto Donna McKevitt (who also worked for derek jarman's TRANSLUENCE & BLUE soundtrack) , and soprano Kelly McCusker (also worked for jarman & balanescu quartet's album "possessed")...have been replaced with teresa casella (bass,backing vocals) , mike servent (keyboards) & barney hollington (violin,hammond organ).

the 11 tracks are all worth listening & exellent. (there are 12 tracks but one of em is only "incidental" & very short)...there are 6 tracks that really stand out from the rest:"tonight" , "close to the sky" , "caravan" (superior to the original version) , "sleeping beauty" , "broken glass" , "all there is"...carnival of souls is worth buying if you like gothic,experimental and original music. if that's the case. then order it now! ps: you can also find more of katharine's work in her latest group called "mediaeval baebes"... & the soundtracks of "BLUE" , "DELUSION" , "HIDEAWAY"

-ex-singer & member of miranda sex garden "jocelyn west" (previously worked for "madra" ,the group "fortran 5" , "david lynch" , "barry adamson" , "derek jarman"..etc).. has a solo album... called:" LUX VIVENS" , her name changed,she's now called "jocelyn montgomery". -donna mckevitt , performs occasionaly for the "mediaeval baebes" -... photograph book called "songs of the flesh"...- drummer trevor sharpe is also the founder of the group "NAKED GOAT".

A Carnival For Your Ears
I've been listening to this cd almost continuously for the past week. An epic masterpiece! GOD IT'S WONDERFUL! It's not as raw or unproduced-sounding as their last cd, the heavily Einstürzende Neubauten-influenced FAIRYTALES OF SLAVERY. No 9-minute instrumentals like on SUSPIRIA, either. But overall there's more great songs here than on both those albums combined. Much better production too. Singer Katherine Blake's voice is as seductive as usual. No more Donna McKevitt, though. So the madrigal-style harmonizing that was ever-present on previous releases is mostly absent. But you won't even notice Donna's gone, since Katherine sings so hypnotically. As you might expect in a Miranda Sex Garden cd, there's plenty of atmosphere, dramatically complex song structures, exotic percussion, and loads of spacey guitars and violins. And there's even a french horn on some of the songs. This one seems to have more "shoegazer"-style long blasts of sheer noise than previous albums, too. To me, the single 'Tonight' reminds me a little of a Portishead song. The wonderful 'Caravan' too. But most of the other songs are as loud and scary as anything they've ever recorded. (Well, there's nothing on here as scary as 'Play' from SUSPIRIA, but that'd be impossible to top). 'Broken Glass' is so gorgeous you'll want to put it on repeat-play forever. And 'Close to the Sky' is even greater, if that's possible. This is a near-perfect cd by a perfect band. I'm thrilled they've finally made an album that lives up to their well-deserved reputation as being one of the greatest live acts of our time.

Wow, man.
This album has all the dark moodiness of "Fairytales of Slavery," and with a little more rock abandon. Blake's voice is as beautiful as ever. The best "It's like..." I can think of is if the cast of Alice in Wonderland stole The Smiths' musical gear and did a Switchblade Symphony album.