The Olive and the Cedar

AMG Review of The Olive and the Cedar

James Christopher Monger
All Music Guide

Loreena McKennitt's A Mediterranean Odyssey collection includes an 11-track anthology of her more Mediterranean-influenced works entitled Olive and the Cedar, as well as a ten-track live performance recorded in 2009 called From Istanbul to Athens. McKennitt's transition from Celtic balladeer to worldbeat superstar began in the early '90s with the genre-hopping Visit. Her penchant for Mediterranean/Far East/Middle Eastern instrumentation came to fruition on 1994's Mask and Mirror and 1997's Book of Secrets, the latter of which spawned her biggest commercial hit with "The Mummer's Dance." The bulk of Olive and the Cedar is made up of material from those three albums. From Istanbul to Athens mines much of the same material, but draws more heavily from 2006's Ancient Muse.