REVIEW: Sarah McLachlan, The Freedom Sessions (Arista/Nettwerk)

- Jeremy Ashcroft

A full-length music CD that's also a multimedia CD-ROM for no more than the cost of a regular CD? Perhaps this release is a preview of what we can expect of all future CDs.

The Freedom Sessions can be thought of as a companion piece to Sarah's previous release, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, since seven of the eight tracks are alternative recordings of tracks from that album. Although Sarah's own comments on the CD-ROM that they are "outtakes, rough-mixes and experiments" sells them short - the songs are every much as "finished" as the originals and in some cases, possibly more interesting. Notably, the single track that isn't a "cover" of one of her own songs is a cover of someone else's - Tom Waits "Ol'55".

To cover the the music first of all...

For anyone unfamiliar with Ms. McLachlan, I would suggest that she could almost be considered a female Peter Gabriel - there's a certain depth and richness in the recording, the combination of new technology and acoustic instruments and the willingness for experimentation.

Probably Sarah's finest instrument is her own voice - my favourite track, "Good Enough", is a prime example. Over a simple piano and (synthesized) orchestral backing, Sarah combines both her rich, deep voice with her lighter, higher voice to great effect - hard to describe, but almost a happy melancholia.

Some of you may know her song "Hold On" from the excellent No Alternative AIDS awareness compilation - this album features a much simpler, piano accompanied version. Personally I prefer the original in this case, but - without giving away all the secrets - there are still more versions of the same song hidden away somewhere.

Another personal favourite is the reworked "Ice" - Sarah almost disowns it on the sleeve notes "often mistakes are the best way to learn how not to do it", but her almost abstract electric guitar experiments make it a really engaging track for these ears.

Since most of the fun of CD-ROMs is experimenting and discovering things for yourself, I'm hesitant to say too much about it, but as a taster for those of you with a multimedia setup on your Mac or Windows machine...

Launching the program presents you with a screen of various icons

To check out Sarah's back catalogue, you click on a picture of the sun - that gives you photos of her previous three album sleeves and clicking on one of those gives you the track listing. Click again on a song and you either hear a minute or so of the track or a clip of the accompanying video.

Clicking the plane tickets brings up a section about a visit Sarah made to Thailand and Cambodia to film a documentary for Canadian TV. Apart from seeing clips of her meeting children there and singing to them, this section also tells you about the charity work she was supporting over there and about the horrors that the charity works to prevent. Don't worry - the tone of the rest of the CD-ROM is much less serious, though again, I don't want to spoil the surprises any further.

In summary, though the CD-ROM aspect of the disc is perhaps less interactive than others that have been released, they are usually 3 or 4 times more expensive than regular CDs. As a "free" extra, I think Sarah and her record company should be supported - I'd certainly enjoy similar additions from my own favourite bands and I'd suggest this was an essential buy for anyone that likes her kind of music.