Fridae

It must be tough being Donna De Lory.

For most of your life, you've been singing your little heart out. You've paid your dues singing theme songs for commercials and amusement park rides. You've toured the globe, performing for screaming crowds of thousands. And now, after travelling on the road to self-discovery, you now find yourself writing, producing and performing music you're really passionate about.

And all people do, is ask about Madonna.

Now, her name might not ring any bells of any sort for many people, but ask any self-respecting Madonna fan, and they'll give you a 2000 word essay on the history of Madonna's long-time friend and backup singer/dancer (if they so much as scratch their heads or pull a blank face, you are authorised to kick them in the ass so hard, your toes make contact with their pancreas). Along with Niki Harris, De Lory's been on stage with Madonna from when Ms. Ciccone was Mrs Penn all the way to Mrs. Ritchie, from fellatio with a water bottle to instant karma, and from being surrounded by badly-behaved dancers to well-behaved children.

Her 1993 debut solo album with MCA Records produced a #1 single in Japan (but that doesn't really count, since they also had a thing for Dick Lee and Maizurah. I mean, come on) and a remix of a song written for her by Madonna was a top ten dance hit in the U.S. Things didn't really take off for her, and she soon parted ways with MCA. The album wasn't bad. I admit that back then, I bought the album simply because she was Madonna's backup singer (it was like a loyalty by association thing). I have a feeling others did as well, and that is perhaps what went wrong - Madonna's fan base was a good starting point, but she's not Madonna, and she needed to find her own audience as well.

The girl just might be able to do just that with her latest album, Bliss. Teamed up with cellist/composer, Cameron Stone, De Lory has created a sound that's more Lilith Fair than Blond Ambition.

Using instruments like Indian bells, tablas and duduks, Bliss has a spiritual, earthy, world music feel, while managing to avoid the icky new agey-ness of Yanni and other supermarket-type music.

---

De Lory's song writing is a major factor in the success of the album. Poignant, poetic and inspired, her lyrics make a perfect match for the alluring, somewhat folky music. On the stand-out track, Please, she confesses to her lover her longing to make a relationship work, singing lines like, "I want to trust you now / But I'm so afraid to believe all your promises / When my fear gets in the way" and "Baby please / I want to make this right for once in my life / For once in my life".

Other lovely tracks include the first single, On And On, where she sings about healing and how things are bigger than just us (for those more interested in prancing about the dance floor than spirituality, yes, there is a Junior Vasquez remix on the single), and the hypnotic Hold Me Now, which fuses the cello, violin, something called a Djembe, and an electric guitar while she sings, "I've been living on a simple dream / In each other's arms we could have everything / If I could only shed this skin of misery / He said, I'll be the man you pray for underneath".

The sweet Only Time is an uplifting track that works because it has a sense of its sorrow, and doesn't come across as annoying the-world-is-a-beautiful-place crap. De Lory singing, "You're drinking the tears of another day / Pulling your trust from his hands / You're thinking that he has abandoned you / Forgetting that life has a plan", is sorta like the hug that makes you feel just that little better.

Oh, and Te Amo is a beautiful song, but I can't tell you what it's about because it's in Spanish. I'm guessing it's about love and shit, but it could very well be about savage Teletubbies invading the planet and stealing our porn supply. It's a good song though.

Bliss isn't a powerful album. It isn't groundbreaking. It isn't even wonderfully enlightening. What it is, however, is loving, subtle, and very pretty. That's the word for it really - pretty. It's pretty without the saccharine, but with a bit of ache and recovering sorrow instead. It has a lovely disarming charm about it that makes you smile. I don't know about you, but I sure could use a bit of that right now.

Released on an independent label, Donna De Lory's Bliss may be a little tricky to find, but it's well worth a bit of trouble and resourcefulness.