Laurel MacDonald defeats iTunes

I was having a cup of tea at Mr S's house a few days ago, and he asked me if I'd ever heard anything by Laurel MacDonald.

It wasn't a name that rang any bells for me, so I said, "No, what sort of stuff does she do?"
"It's a bit difficult to describe... Hang on a minute, have a listen."
After a small battle with his unexpectedly anarchic filing system, he located the CD he was looking for, and flipped it into the player.

The first track was... intriguing.

"Take it and give it a proper listen" he said. So I did

Well, the album is called "Chroma", and what a treat it is. It is hard to describe though. It has already defeated the 'Genre' classification regime of the Gracenote database and according to iTunes, it is "Unclassifiable".

Laurel MacDonald is Toronto-based and has been favourably compared with such artists as Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson and I would add Enya to these. Compositions on the album are inspired and built on traditional Anglo lyrics ("A Wing and a Prayer"), the Egyptian scale ("Agnus Dei"), Scottish-Gaelic heritage ("Oran Na H-Eala") and more besides. If this sounds a bit arty-farty, don't be put off. It's a hell of a lot more accessible than this might lead you to expect.

Whatever it is, it sounds fabulous, and I'm almost embarrassed to have allowed myself to miss this album for the ten years that it's been available.
Strongly recommended.