LORRAINE ROUSSEAU & ROBERT CARLTON
It's a Mystery
(p) & (c) 1997 Arrow Records
10tks/41mins

"The past is history, the present is a gift and the future... it's a mystery". Namely to these words (being the citation from a book by Deepak Chopra named "Seven Spiritual Laws of Success") is obliged the name of this album. And this is not an accidental thing, because Lorraine Rousseau and Robert Carlton create music containing admiration before the existence. It is very beautiful, romantic and a little bit mysterious. Also it is melodically perfect - here one can feel the classical music education obtained by these two musicians in Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music. Still, this is not the main thing. In the music by Rousseau and Carlton is a delicate and hardly perceptible fragrance. This is a fragrance of standing on the threshold of something new and unknown. You are just ready to begin the journey and you are glad to have this meeting - meeting with the unknown. This joy is a little bit worrying and intriguing, as a joy of a child, waiting for the new game to begin.

Main characters of "It's a Mystery" are the soft flute of Lorraine and accompanying Robert's guitar having soft nylon strings. But these characters are not lonely: in the record of the album took part a whole group of excellent musicians, who made the arrangements rich and juicy. These are Gordon Sheard (keyboards), Vernon Dorge (saxophone), Scott Alexander (bass) and Brian Leonard (percussion). It should me added that the sounding of some compositions (for example Forever You or From Now On is close to smooth jazz, which brings a refinement to the music. It's a Mystery begins with wonderfully beautiful, purely new age theme Your Sweet Smile, which sets a tone to the whole album. In general, the album can be characterized, as an "elegant new age". I have found a definite similarity of the music by by Rousseau and Carlton with the music by one more remarkable musician - Bernward Koch.

So, it is not surprising that It's a Mystery has won a broad recognition from the listeners. It was recorded as long as three years. Here, I have to say only one thing: listen to It's a Mystery and plunge into a lacy stream of soft harmonies, plaited by two "ordinary" magicians - Lorraine Rousseau and Robert Carlton.

Serge Kozlovsky