There are no shadows here. No braid of hidden messages or secret chasms with voices calling from a faraway place. For the majority, there is not even any instrumental support to speak of, nothing on which the boys can base their tone quality, nothing for notes to rebound against.

Libera’s voices are out in the open and they sing with each other, for each other, from and into each other, blending with the spherical sheath of potency that they have formed, tingling, fragile yet unbreakable. The result is unworldly, a holy, poignant sound that is so well balanced between the parts that it is as strong as a mountain and as blazing as a silent flame.

The soul is precious and the boys bear their own through their voices, from the very first notes to their final words from Earth. The expression is sombre which they perform with sensitivity and sincerity.

An entire verse is given to us as a gift where the parts are transposed down and sung from the core of the veiled realm of sound. Possessing the treble purity of those in the surrounding verses, the voices keep descending, down and down where there is no end, richness and depth soaking through space.

Gliding over the cavernous mass is a voice that shapes a shining arc, cutting crystal clean in its bell-like presence.

Copyright © 2004 Merewyn Bramble, Benj Schatzmann, Stewart Simpson