and I do mean beautiful in the way that medieval Christian icons are beautful, or in the way it's beautiful when someone who has nothing makes a small sacrifice out of love: that's the kind of beauty that's resting in these meditative, quiet, low-on-the-dynamics and high-on-the-mellow-string-drone numbers. if you know "Wake Up in New York" from the last Craig Armstrong album, that's the feeling that Immortal Memory boils down and eats the gooey syrup left after the fire's run out and you can't do any more boiiling-down. i had a funny comment about how Evan Dando sings "Wake Up in New York" and does not sing on Immortal Memory , thereby making Immortal Memory the clear winner, but the hell with it. Immortal Memory makes me feel ashamed that I am the sort of person who wants to take cheap shots at Evan Dando.

that's what i mean when i say that Lisa Gerrard on this new record goes way down deep into the bottom of it: the songs are so slow, they've hardly got any percussion at all, and some favor "ooh" and "ahh" over actual words and then some others are in, get this, Aramaic , and the result is that the things of the day-to-day start looking so small