Inarticulate Speech of the Heart

Polydor 839 604-2
(Released March, 1983)

Higher than the World (3:42)
Connswater (instrumental - see Glossary entry) (4:09)
River of Time (3:02)
Celtic Swing (instrumental) (5:03)
Rave On, John Donne (5:12)
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart No. 1 (instrumental) (4:53)
Irish Heartbeat (4:40)
The Street Only Knew Your Name (3:36)
Cry for Home (3:44)
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart No. 2 (3:53)
September Night (5:16)
Total time: (47:01)

Musicians:
David Hayes: Bass
Mark Isham: Synthesizer/Trumpet
John Allair: Keyboards
Pee Wee Ellis: Saxophone
Tom Donlinger: Percussion/Drums
Mihr Un Nisa Douglass: Vocal
Stephanie Douglass: Vocal
Pauline Lozana: Vocal
Arty McGlynn: Guitar
Chris Michie: Guitar
Van Morrison: Guitar/Keyboards/Saxophone/Vocal
Davy Spillane: Wind
Annie Stocking: Vocal
Bianca Thornton: Vocal
Peter VanHooke: Drums

Review by Scott Thomas:
[Beautiful Vision's instrumental] "Scandinavia"'s acceptance by critics and fans made exclusively instrumental music a viable avenue of exploration for the ever-curious Morrison. Inarticulate Speech of the Heart contains the fruits of these new explorations. He needn't have bothered. The problem is Mark Isham and his tasteless, shapeless synthesizer-induced haze. Without the beacon of Morrison's earthbound voice and with the rhythm section obscured by the swirling electronic fog, virtually all of the too numerous instrumentals on Inarticulate Speech of the Heart are little more than cosmic goop.

The seven vocal pieces range from the genuinely awful ("Rave On, John Donne") to the pretty terrific ("Higher Than the World" and "Cry for Home").

Review by David Chance:
This is not a dance album, this is not a pop album. This is an album of reflection, "meditation and contemplation too". And for myself, this is the best Van Morrison album there is. An album about longing, memories, hope and vision, the sacred and the profane. This is a Sunday morning record, this is church...rave on & testify! If a label must be stuck on it, file it under "New Age Soul". It came out in 1983, the same year the public radio program "Music From The Hearts Of Space" began airing (the cover of Inarticulate Speech of the Heart seems a perfect interpretation of that phrase). The genre labeled "New Age" does tend to contain a lot of crap, but there are some gems, and this is one of them. And the inclusion of Mark Isham at this time in his own career was a truely great decision; obviously the man liked his sound... and what a great sound!

Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website