Buffy Sainte-Marie
Illuminations

THE REVIEW

1969: electronics, sampling, and synthesizers were probably terms that weren't even in the dictionaries; yet that year, an album appeared on the music scene, "Illuminations" indeed, which founded its Verbum on those three words.

But how could it have happened?!! And yes, Buffy (a Canadian of Native American origin) has always been a folk artist par excellence like Joan Baez, voice (all vibrato and octaves) and guitar, perhaps with some trace of country and rock in some of her works, but light-years away from electronic impulses and instincts (at least so thought her fans of that time), always strong and direct in her protest compositions.

Perhaps the world had stopped, perhaps the Apocalypse was about to come, perhaps Judgment Day was near, and Buffy realized that humanity would need a soundtrack for the final unveiling of the primordial Mystery. Magic, mystery, and esotericism accompany psychedelic eclecticism and ancestral emotions. The sounds present in almost all the songs have been synthesized, altered, and distorted starting from Buffy Sainte-Marie's own voice and guitar (with the help of music technician Michael Czajkowski from the electronic music studio of the N.Y.U. School of the Arts).

The beauty of the album is comparable to the vision of Eden, its prophetic innovation, however, has always remained in the limbo of musical and sectarian cult pearls, of visionary poet-artists, and of millennial treasures like the Holy Grail. "God Is Alive, Magis Is Afoot" (i.e. "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot," written in collaboration with Leonard Cohen) is the first step of a metaphysical and transcendental sound trip that passes through Gothic-medieval worlds ("Mary", "The Vampire" and "Poppies"), crosses occult lands ("Adam", "The Dream Tree") and intersects with schizophrenic landscapes ("Better To Find Out For Yourself", "With You, Honey" and "He's A Keeper Of The Fire").

And as if to reveal the principle of "nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, but everything is transformed" or the ultimate sense of existence which makes the end coincide with the beginning (in a whirling cycle of death equals birth, of a snake biting its tail), the initial loop of Buffy's voice, announcing that "God is alive, magic is afoot" at the beginning, returns at the end to close the album, yet opening another door to another life.

The prophecy has come true: a whole array of artists has been "illuminated," starting with Tim Buckley and Roedelius, who were so struck by such mystical listening that they kept it secret because humanity was (and is) not yet ready.