Capercaillie - Beautiful Wasteland (1997)

Capercaillie is the leading torchbearer for an innovative Celtic music hybrid that integrates Scottish traditional styles with sleek contemporary ambient, dance, and pop elements--bringing the music well beyond its customary folkie boundaries. Beautiful Wasteland is constructed largely from Gaelic "mouth music" tunes sung gorgeously by Karen Matheson and arranged with submarine musical depths by Manus Lunny. There are showers of synthesizers to color the fiddle and bouzouki textures, but the synths never take precedence simply because so much is going on. Capercaillie rivets their tunes with solid beats and then populates the sound field with ambient vibrations and a catalog of acoustic instruments. In addition, North African vocal duo Sibeba collaborates on two tracks, adding a vocal dimension that further extends Beautiful Wasteland's unassuming, profound international multiculturalism. --Andrew Bartlett

1. M'ionam
2. Inexile
3. The Tree
4. Am Mur Gorm
5. Beautiful Wasteland
6. Co Ni Mire Rium
7. Shelter
8. Hebridean Hale-Bopp
9. Kepplehall/25 KTS
10. Thiocfadh Leat Fanacht
11. Finlay's
12. Sardinia