Sarah McLachlan Fumbling Towards Ecstasy CD

Live Recording

Personnel: Sarah McLachlan (vocals, acoustic & electric guitar, piano); Bill Dillon (guitar, Guitorgan, piano, bass); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Michel Dubeau (saxophone); Pierre Marchand (piano, keyboards, bass, percussion, programming); David Kershaw (Hammond B-3 organ); Brian Minato (bass); Jerry Marotta (drums, percussion); Guy Nadon, Ashwin Sood, Lou Shefano (drums).
FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY was nominated for a 1995 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.
Personnel: Sarah McLachlan (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, piano); Bill Dillon (guitar, piano); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Michel Dubeau (saxophone); Pierre Marchand (piano, keyboards, drums, drum machine, percussion); Jerry Marotta (drums, percussion); Lou Shefano, Guy Nadon, Ashwin Sood (drums).
Audio Mixer: Pierre Marchand.
Unknown Contributor Role: Bill Dillon.
Although 1991's Solace made Sarah McLachlan a star in Canada, her international breakthrough arrived two years later with Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, a softly assured album that combined the atmospheric production of Pierre Marchand (a former apprentice -- and evident disciple -- of Daniel Lanois) with some of McLachlan's strongest songwriting to date. At the center of everything was her voice, an ethereal, lilting soprano that helped pave the way for Paula Cole, Lillith Fair, and a decade's worth of successful female songwriters. McLachlan utilized the crack between her chest and head voice, emphasizing the changing tones as her melodies climbed into the vocal stratosphere. She was also comparatively young at the time of Ecstasy's release, and her combination of vocal hooks and commercial appeal wouldn't be fully mastered until 1997's Surfacing. Even so, McLachlan's work was rarely as raw or honest as it is on this record, where tales of sin, lust, and love are delivered alongside piano arpeggios and electronic flourishes. "Possession," the album's lead-off single, is a jarring love ballad with lyrics inspired by a stalker's correspondence. There's a double-edged quality to the song's eerie lines -- "I'll take your breath away," "I won't be denied," "Just close your eyes, dear" -- and Marchand underscores that tension by setting McLachlan's melodies to a nocturnal trip-hop beat. Elsewhere, the two lighten up with "Ice Cream," which likens love's sweetness to decadent deserts, yet Fumbling Towards Ecstasy takes most of its strength from the lush, rhythmic dreamscapes that dominate the album. Alternately dark and shimmering, intimate and ornate, soothing and slyly unsettling, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy launched McLachlan's international star power while setting a high bar for her future albums, many of which approached -- but not never quite eclipsed -- this career highlight. ~ Andrew Leahey
Nettwerk reissued Sarah McLachlan's breakthrough album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, with an additional live disc in 1996. The live disc is solid, but it isn't particularly noteworthy, making this package interesting only to hardcore collectors and devoted fans. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Heavily atmospheric, building around intertwined harmonies and lush arrangements, FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY might remind some of early Sinead O'Connor. McLachlan's ethereal vocal style pulls from the same sources as O'Connor, but add a calm that's more akin to contemporary jazz or new age than the pop charts McLachlan has climbed. The lifeblood of her songs are her physical and emotional relationships with people. With lyrics centered around satisfaction and the ways to maintain it, much of FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY doesn't fumble but caresses.
Her lyrics compare love to ice cream, and promise kisses to make her lover breathless. Listening to the album, it's not hard to imagine what McLachlan has on her mind, nor why she's on the charts. FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY shows an artist busily experimenting with the different songwriting textures available. The big drum sound in "Possession" and the chiminRolling Stone (6/16/94, p.109) - 3.5 Stars (out of 5) - "...there are moments of quiet radiance on ECSTASY, and even the more-elusive songs reveal a passionate dignity..."