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.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 chiming U2-like guitar of "Plenty" give McLachlan plenty of room to breathe, but do not suffocate her in one dismissable category.
