ATARAXIA
"Des Paroles Blanches"
CD
01 - "Etretat"
02 - "Veules Les Roses"
03 - "Hovering (Part I, Part II)"
I have always considered ATARAXIA's music to be incredibly beautiful, and this mini-album / ep is no exception. Yet it's a beauty often taken one step further than a kindly Mother Nature may have chosen as the best point from which to quit and call it a day. I have often seen women who to all intents and purposes should be so stunning to the eye as to rend the awe struck male blind, yet the carved bone structure is a little too prominent, the high cheekbones a degree too high; the large almond-shaped eyes a little too large, too shaped; the full bow-shaped lips puckered an nth too much; the figure so perfect as to have been designed rather than being a gift of benevolent chance.
Maybe it's a beauty that does not become fully developed in the young, but flourishes as the years go by. Certainly on this collection there are few moments when the heart-stoppingly wonderful sound fails. Instead they create a wonderland of soul-lifting, awe-inspiring sound. ATARAXIA have been few a few changes over the years, touching on a much more strident, Martial sound at one point. But here they have returned to a Neo-Classical sound, where keyboards create orchestral forms like palaces of harmonic crystal, and classical guitars shine like silver stalks blowing in the warm winds of a rose-scented dream.
As ever, though, it's the extraordinary range and variety of the female voices which make this the slice of perfection it is. They do not have the voices of angels - save that for church choirs. Neither are they particularly New Age - these voices can have steel sharp edges when they want. Nor does this fit into the dreamtime diaphanous gusts of Holiness from those who sing Celtic ballads - no ENYAs, nor DEAD CAN DANCE or CLANNAD wisps of near-nothingness, luring you into misty idylls of mythology.
No. These women are real. Tangible reality transformed into a gorgeous voyage of escapism. They caress you with their harmonics, beguile you with images gasped from flesh-and-blood mouths. They manage to be both untouchable and erotic at the same time, not openly flirtatious, yet unabashed as we listen to every nuance with a lion hunger. Their every tone caresses your senses, seducing some incorruptible child within the adult you, taking you back to a time when innocence brushed against proto-sensual, the first delicate whispers of all the storms, squalls and pain to come.
This ep / mini album is a high point in a musical career which has known few lows. If you have never experienced their sound and feel you need some truely beautiful sounds in your life, then this is a perfect starting point. Your soul may soar, your spirit fly, to touch such beauty'll make you cry.
