Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Duality (1998)

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Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Duality (1998)

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Duality is at once sacred and playful. It is both dark and light, organic and refined, masculine and feminine. Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard partners with Pieter Bourke, formerly of Aussie band Eden, to create this compositional dance of partnership that is classical, ancient, and thoroughly modern. Gerrard's voice is multitracked at times, conjuring a cathedral choir and the droning chants of monks. Drums and synth snake from desert to brilliant stormy sky to shaking earth and the bodies that inhabit those spaces. There are lush multiple layers of strings, bagpipe drone, and, quite literally, the laughter of children. The vocals sans "real" words and multicultural instrumentation will be familiar to Dead Can Dance listeners. Yet there is something more exclusive, more womblike about the music of Bourke and Gerrard; rather than two distinct bodies making music, like mother and in utero child sharing blood and breath, they are mutually dependent.

Review by Paige La Grone, Amazon

Having already worked with Pieter Bourke on The Mirror Pool, Lisa Gerrard created her second album, Duality, with him as a full partner. It's literally just the two of them, recorded at a home studio in Australia. Bourke's work in Eden – which had often been tagged with a Dead Can Dance wannabe brush – actually meant that he knew more than most where Gerrard was coming from with her all-encompassing vision of music from different locales and times. Compared to the often overwhelming feeling of The Mirror Pool, Duality is no less mysterious and captivating, but still maintains a more intimate, close atmosphere. The echoing depths that characterize Gerrard's work again appear, as much a tribute to excellent production as it is an artistic choice, and there are wondrous parts with haunting string arrangements, but there are no huge, heavenly orchestras or the like dominating this time out. Meanwhile, the mysterious folk/dance side of Gerrard's work remains intact, percussive instruments of all sorts to the fore, blending Arabic, Mediterranean, South Asian, and other styles into a mystic whole, as on tracks like "Shadow Magnet" and "Nadir (Synchronicity)." Where there are rhythmless tracks, such as "The Unfolding" and the minimal beauty of "The Circulation of Shadows," the scale is less dominating, more directly connecting. As always, Gerrard's voice is simply breathtaking, the vaunted and well-earned reputation for her singing range completely intact. Perhaps most surprising is when she sings in clear, straightforward English on "The Human Game," compared to her usual glossolalia when singing her own lyrics; in context, it's a fascinating switch. Bourke's own contributions – it's not immediately clear if those include vocals, given Gerrard's own abilities in both high and low registers – mesh excellently with her instrumental work and, since no specific credit appears instrument for instrument, everything works as a true partnership.

Review by Ned Raggett, Allmusic.com

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Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Duality (1998)

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Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Duality (1998)

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Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke - Duality (1998)

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