Delerium

Featuring an array of renowned singers, Nuages, out October 3, 2006 on Nettwerk Records, neatly combines the more overtly commercial pop of previous album Chimera (2005) with the lush sensual ambience and cloistered harmonies of Karma, a meld that bridges the gap between world music, new age electronics and modern classical.

The album features a number of collaborators new to Delerium. The accomplished Juno award-winning Punjabi singer Kiran Ahluwalia dominates one of the more dance-floor friendly album cuts, the heady Bollywood meets 4/4 beats of “Indoctrination.”

Meanwhile, Isabel Bayrakdarian is a highly esteemed Armenian-Canadian soprano with a wonderfully expressive voice whose acclaimed collection of Armenian liturgical songs Joyous Light pricked the ears of composer Howard Shore and led to a personal invitation to contribute to his multi-million selling Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers soundtrack. Bayrakdarian, whose wordless, almost muezzin wail adds dramatic tension to album opener “Angelicus” and the darker tones of “Lumenis,” is a singer searching for something very personal in her music. "What I'm most interested in is beautiful singing....something that speaks to me," she says. "That's my main guideline to everything that I sing, whether it's opera, recital or concert" - a sentiment you can be sure that Messrs Leeb and Fulber agree with wholeheartedly.

The album also features contributions from a host of Delerium regulars; Faithless vocalist Zoe Johnston, Kristy Thirsk, a stalwart since their Nettwerk debut Semantic Spaces, and session virtuoso Kirsty Hawkshaw (Opus III, Orbital).

However, fans of Delerium's more cinematic moments will not be disappointed by the grandiose “Tectonic Shift,” a slow-building storm cloud of an instrumental, augmented by sweeping John Barry-esque strings courtesy of arranger Chris Elliott (Moulin Rouge, Rufus Wainwright) whilst the haunted “Apparition” provides Nuages de Monde with a suitably elegiac conclusion. On the other side of the coin the Jaël fronted “Lost and Found,” a radio friendly vignette of lazily seductive pop, taps a more commercial vein, and English vocal group Mediaeval Baebes add a dose of religiosity and sophistication to “Extollere” and the pretty “Sister Sojourn Ghost.”

Nuages de Monde proves another notable milestone on the ever-metamorphosing musical landscape of Leeb and Fulber.

Previous Delerium recordings for Nettwerk have included Semantic Spaces (1995), breakthrough album Karma (1997), Poem (2001) and Chimera (2005). The band have sold over a million albums in North America alone, but are also known for a string of successful singles, including the worldwide dance smash “Silence” (featuring the talents of superstar Sarah McLachlan), which sold over 300,000 copies in the UK. Other hits have included “After All,” “Innocente (Falling In Love),” “Underwater” and “Heaven’s Earth.”

Leeb and Fulber have a number of other highly regarded musical collaborations under their belt, most notably the influential industrial act Front Line Assembly, while Fulber has found solo success as a producer and lately with his celebrated ethno-ambient pop project Conjure One, most recently with “Extraordinary Ways” (2005).