After Enigma

Delerium, Conjure One, Intermix

Delerium - Semantic Spaces

Delerium - Karma

Let me start out by mentioning that this CD, released in 1997, is currently in Amazon's 2,500 top-selling albums (as of October, 2004). In my opionion, its one of the two quintessential albums in this genre, along with Enigma's Cross of Changes. In addition to Silence, featuring Sarah McLachlan, this album includes three other songs I feel are worth mentioning individually:

The songs on this album are wonderfully varied, intermingling electonics, world music samples, and vocal styles ranging from pop to tribal, all to great effect. The songs are also quite long, the first track weighing in at eight and a half minutes. The album basically takes up the entire CD at just under 75 minutes. A few tracks include samples from songs by Dead Can Dance, who were a seminal group in the revival of medieval music over the past few decades. The variety and quality make the length of this album a pleasure to endure - if you don't have it, get it - I know its not that easy to find a cheap/used copy, but in this case, you get what you pay for.

Delerium - Poem

Rhys Fulber, half of the Delerium duo, was not involved in the production of this album. The liner notes imply that Bill Leeb was primarily in charge, but collaborated with Greg Reely and Chris Peterson. My conjecture is that the two decided to take a break and do independent albums, Leeb keeping the Delerium name during the hiatus, leaving Fulber to come up with the name "Conjure One." The self-titled Conjure One album came out slightly over a year after Poem, so I view them as parallel projects. In my opinion, Fulber is the master in this genre, though I've read elsewhere the Leeb is generally held in higher regard.

Poem was created in the image of Karma, but doesn't equal its predecessor. The albums biggest fault lies in the order of the songs. Innocente, Nature's Kingdom, and Fallen Icons, three of the first five tracks on the album, feature singers with weak, breathy voices (though, in all fairness, the sound may be due to production rather than performance). The the only track in the first half of the album that really stands its ground is Daylight, featuring the only male vocalist on the album, Matthew Sweet. Tracks six through nine approach the standard set by Karma, via a combination of better songwriting and stronger vocals. The only instrumental track on this album is the last, Amongst the Ruins. It's long and well-produced, but it lacks the drive of Remembrance, the track from Karma whose shoes I suspect it was meant to fill. Fans of pre-Semantic Spaces Delerium might prefer this one, though - its a bit more ambient.

As far as I know, the only available version of this album is the one with the "bonus track," which is a dance mix of Silence. It doesn't sound anything like the rest of the album, which I strongly dislike. I do like the remix, but I prefer albums to be unified wholes, and this track doesn't fit in at all. It would much prefer if the remix had been posted for free downloading, or included on the remix collection.

As much as I enjoy most of Delerium's work, I can't really recommend spending your money on an album with only about 4 solid tracks. There's a lot of other good music reviewed on this site - go find something new.

Delerium - Chimera

Conjure One - Conjure One