Laurel MacDonald
Wingspan
(Wicklow/BMG)



20th Century

Ambient

Drum And Bass

Electronic / Experimental / Industrial

Industrial Rhythm

Techno

Trip Hop, Breaks, Dub, World-Fusion

(Very) Alternative

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    Canada's Laurel MacDonald previews her second album, Chroma, with this collection of remixes of "A Wing & A Prayer." Some of her indie debut, 1995's Kiss Closed My Eyes, was comparable to the ethereal textures of Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerard, but now she has joined her cousin Mary Jane Lamond on the Chieftain's Paddy Moloney's Wicklow label, so you can expect to hear more of the Celtic-folk aspects of her advanced vocal repertoire. This emotional and haunting track, produced with her musical partner Philip Strong, features a thick mix of guitar/bass elements and sampled vocals. Remixer Bill Laswell (whose Sacred System group is also a Wicklow signing) works with the guitar elements (rather than his patented dub bass line) for a result that wouldn't be out of place on a Golden Palominos album. Transglobal Underground turn the guitars and drums around for a surreal effect, but fail to drop any of their bass-heavy dance floor rhythms either. It is New York's master texturalist Richard Horowitz, who places the song in a new rhythmic framework, a kind of slow breaks and techno mix that speeds up into a quasi-junglist rhythm. Vancouver's Mo Funk-ers turn "A Wing & A Prayer" into a spacey, brushed jazz groove. As a finale, John Oswald (who has worked with her before) plunders several Chroma tracks for a ten minute drift work not too far from Holger Czukay's improvs with David Sylvian, and ending like one of Meredith Monk's more peaceful choral pieces.