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DEAD CAN DANCE
Spiritchaser, Dead Can Dance’s seventh album, came out in 1996 and is the final studio album the band released with 4AD (it was to be another 16 years until they reconvened to make their eighth, Anastasis). Again recording at Brendan’s Quivvy Church in Ireland and as hinted at by the album’s title, the band had moved their focus away from the traditional medieval and Eastern sound of their middle albums to work with African and Caribbean tribal rhythms. With percussion at the fore, Spiritchaser is mainly just Brendan and Lisa, whose strong singing – like most their career’s work - remains the album’s centrepiece.
With the industrial textures of their eponymous debut behind them, the fifth album from Dead Can Dance (Aion, released in 1990) is perhaps the most focused and concise of their albums. Predominately recorded at their own studio in Southern Ireland and featuring guest vocals from soprano David Navarro Sust to add to Brendan and Lisa’s opposing yet complimentary styles, the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance are a core influence; an atmosphere amplified by the album’s cover, a section from the Earth phase of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights.
Dead Can Dance’s fourth album, The Serpent’s Egg (1988), came during a prolific period for the band, being released just four years after their debut. It was also the first they made at their own studio which, according to Brendan Perry, allowed them to continue to grow in “their own self-proclaimed direction”. A minimal yet rather grandiose record which includes fan favourites ‘The Host Of Seraphim’ and ‘Ullyses’, The Serpent’s Egg is a triumph and perhaps the finest example of where Brendan and Lisa’s diametrically different influences are overcome to form a new, almost synaesthetic whole.
‘Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun’: With Dead Can Dance now firmly centred round the core of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, they released their third album ‘Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun’ in the Summer of 1987, showing both a continued maturity in their sound and rise in their popularity. Recorded during an intense period of musical and personal growth for the band, the album’s eight songs are split equally between the duo with the first half being sung by Brendan and the second Lisa. At the time, Q Magazine described the album as combining “superb voice, ethereal church choirs, sweeping strings and a brochure of ethnic music: Middle Eastern, Indian, Moorish, anywhere but London’s East End where the couple resided.” The album’s cover only adds to the album’s aura of mystery with a haunting photograph of the family grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris of famed French biologist François-Vincent Raspail.
‘Toward The Within’: Released in October 1994 and out of print on vinyl ever since, ‘Toward The Within’ was an audio and video document of the 1993 sell-out Dead Can Dance World tour. Recorded at the Mayfair Theater in Santa Monica, California, it marked one of the final performances at the historic theatre as it later suffered major structural damage in an earthquake in 1994. Despite being a live recording, ‘Toward The Within’ includes twelve previously unrecorded tracks as well as material from their six previous studio albums.
‘Garden Of The Arcane Delights’ / ‘The John Peel Sessions’: ‘Garden Of The Arcane Delights’ is the only EP released by Dead Can Dance, coming out in 1984 and acting as a bridge between their first two albums. Its sleeve a sketch by Brendan Perry, depicting “primal man deprived of perception, standing within the confines of a garden containing a fountain and trees laden with fruit... a Blakean universe in which mankind can only redeem itself, can only rid itself of blindness, through the correct interpretation of signs and events that permeate the fabric of nature’s laws.”
This new expanded version sees the EP faithfully pressed on to one piece of a vinyl at 45rpm with a second disc being added, compiling both of the band’s sessions for John Peel, recorded in the same time period.
This new expanded version sees the EP faithfully pressed on to one piece of a vinyl at 45rpm with a second disc being added, compiling both of the band’s sessions for John Peel, recorded in the same time period.
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- Ltd LP
- £19.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- CAD3623
- Release date
- 8 Jul '16
Dead Can Dance’s second album, Spleen And Ideal (1985), saw them experiment more with instrumentation, abandoning guitars in favour of cello, trombone and timpani. Widely acclaimed, there was now a richness of unification between voice and music, lyrics and structure, showing they had a concrete sense of the aural ideal they were striving towards. It’s title was taken from Spleen et Idéal, a collection of poems by 18th century French poet Charles Baudelaire.
The 2016 LP version is a repress of the original release.
The 2016 LP version is a repress of the original release.
-
- Ltd LP
- £19.99
Usually ships within: 2-5 days - Cat Number
- CAD3622
- Release date
- 8 Jul '16
On their eponymous debut album, originally released in 1984, Dead Can Dance successfully harnessed a “bewitching barrage of sounds, layering grinding guitars and even a dulcimer-like yang chin over a taut wash of percussion. If the range of the group is staggering, then so too is their disciplined economy, no song lasting more than four minutes or degenerating into formless cacophony. With the five group members continually interchanging instruments, only the vocals of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry remain as a constant focus”.
The 2016 LP version is a repress of the original release.
The 2016 LP version is a repress of the original release.