Caroline Sullivan: CD of the week
It was clear after the sexcentricity of Madonna’s last studio LPs, Erotica and Bedtime Stories, that the next would have to be markedly different – and Ray Of Light (WEA) certainly is.
She’s done what superstars at a crossroads do – found religion. She’s been studying the Kabbalah and Hinduism, and Ray Of Light is the result of what she calls her “metamorphosis”. The title itself attests to the change in her life and each track reinfor ces the idea: Material Girl has become Ethereal Girl.
One vainly searches for evidence of bodily appetites in these homages to higher consciousness. Even common-or-garden love songs like The Power of Goodbye and To Have and Not to Hold are phrased with a delicate disregard for the things that used to keep h er going.
The predominant mood is questing, quizzical, full of a new mother’s adoration and a grown woman’s wisdom.
But her smartest move was calling in English ambient pioneer William Orbit to produce. By allowing Orbit his trip-hoppy tricks, she’s ended up with a wholly seductive record.
The first two songs, Drowned World/My Substitute For Love and Swim, plunge right in. The latter has the dreamy feel of moving underwater, its flowing quality making the best of her improved but still limited voice. She’s nothing less than delicious on To Have and Not to Hold, which is rendered by its delicate beats and just-perceptible bells, the prettiest track. Little Star, dedicated to her offs
pring, is just understated enough not to make you retch.
But by and large, the girl’s done well, on a record that will become one of her benchmarks.