Dead Can Dance - S/d

emailed 4AD and got the lowdown. on sale the 9th, £120 from 4AD mailorder, edition of 100(!), hybrid CD/SACD. so, with postage about $250. i'm in.

Urgh, no way

although i guess re-sell value could be high

John Francis Dooley, wipe the sleep from your eyes

Can anyone who has one or more of the remastered albums tell me whether they actually sound better than the originals? I was half tempted to order them all, but then I listened to the original CDs and I can't decide if there's much to be improved in there, soundwise.

I've found them to be noticeably better, particularly at high volume.

Ok, thanks!

In among all the reunion shenanigans of the past few years, the Dead Can Dance reunion often seems to get overlooked. There was no mention of it on this thread when it was happening, for example. The DCD show I saw in London in 2005 was one of the best concerts I've ever seen – a highly charged and emotional occasion.

I flew to DC to see them on that tour!

I'd never knowningly heard anything by Dead Can Dance before, but I was in a record store the other day and something undeniably "of that era" was playing, and I was really captivated. I asked the clerk, and felt a fool when she answered "Dead Can Dance"... I forgot to ask which record it was, but it was arresting and beautiful. How did I wait so long?!

Baby steps, sir. But glad you're taking the plunge. Anyway, listen to everything. Simple!

listen to everything

except for Spiritchaser and the new one

I'm sure you're right, Ned! I'll just pick the one with the prettiest cover and start there... (Man, they have some pretty covers, don't they?)

xpost -- they both have their moments.

xxpost and to help further out our DCD newbie:

my fav DCD albums are the three last ones before the temporary split - Into the Labyrinth (1993), the live Toward The Within (1994 - best live album of all times, even if you don't consider two thirds on it are unreleased material which is frequently even superior to the released material), and, indeed, Spiritchaser (1996). this is their so-called 'ethno' phase. I never cared for gothic, or '80s music too of its times, so I got into DCD via Aion (1990) - a beautiful re-enactment of renaissance music. DCD fans come pretty much divided into goths/worlds. I'm in the latter category; but it's not just that, it's that both of them truly got better and better with time, either as producers, composers, or (especially) singers.

the new one, this year's Anastasis, has its moments as Ned says, but otherwise it's been a crushing disappointment: briefly, it's pretty much a Brendan Perry solo album with Lisa Gerrard guesting. on that front, I much prefer Perry's solo album Ark (2010) - a kind of electronic Dead Can Dance. DCD fans often divide themselves into Perry-philes and Lisa-philes as solo albums go: I'm in the former camp.

Spiritchaser is a thing unto itself, absolutely under-rated and foolishly reviled. it's the sound of a band rejuvenating itself, becoming lighter, revisiting it's post punk roots (one-note Cure-ish guitar solos) by dipping them into Caribbean and African vodun/voodoo music. it's also the one album they get to sing together on almost all tracks. it's the album that promised to usher a new phase, but then they split up. get it and listen to it with open ears, don't mind the blinkered haters.

if, on the other hand, you're more of a goth in your tastes, people swear by Spleen and Ideal (1985) and Within the Realm of a Dying Sun (1987). not me - I wish they realised those albums with the musical experience and vocal power they accrued years later. on that count, the new one is an interesting proposition, as it really retraces their roots, but with an increased gravitas about it (shame that it's so uninspired compositionally as well as, I would say, motivationally). it's practically a lesser brother of B. Perry' aforementioned Ark (which is a mighty fine record).

lastly, during their split, Perry also released a fine English-folk-inspired album, Eye of the Hunter (1999), while Gerrard was much more prolific with several studio albums and, especially, Hollywood soundtracks. but I don't care much for her work outside of DCD, so maybe someone else could advise on that front.

happy discovery!

Aw, thanks much Max! I'm indeed more inclined toward the goth, so I believe I'll start close to the beginning. I can't exactly resist an album title like Within the Realm of a Dying Sun...

you're welcome. you're right, I adore that title, too. and watch until you see its cover.. : )

if goth's the style you prefer, I think you will gonna like the new album, then. long-time fans often get to have jaded ears, so.. : )

so there are yet two albums I haven't mentioned. Dead Can Dance (1984) is also unto itself, for it being very much post-punkish as rhythm section, guitars etc. go. their only 'rock' album, if you will. the band were never satisfied with its sound/production, though.
and then there's The Serpent's Egg (1988), a very nice album, which is stylistically the exact link between its predecessor (Within the Realm..) and its successor (Aion).

ah - I was almost forgetting: in 2005 they attempted a reunion first time around with a world tour that spawned some new tracks (two conflued into Perry's aforementioned Ark album) and a host of double live albums produced by theshow.com - there are some dozen of them, plus 'Selections from Europe' and 'Selections from North America'. they're a bit harder to find than the official albums on 4AD, but they are worth finding them out. the tracklist is interesting and spanning wide, mostly because it's peppered with new/unreleased/solo-careers songs, and they remain impressive live (although these days they sadly rely much more on samples than live period instruments as was the case back when).

the official albums have all been lovingly remastered some years ago, get the remasters over the original CDs by all means (sound quality, 4AD-designed booklet with lyrics and period photographs).
On their official site (deadcandance.com) you can see the covers and I believe they stream the whole discography, too.

lastly, they also have one official video out to date - the DVD to the Toward the Within tour/live album. it's the concert (not entire, but cherry-picked enough) peppered with interviews both with Gerrard and Perry. as with its live album counterpart, it's absolutely indispensable. one critique you could make is that the studio albums feel a bit clinical: the additional musicians and instrumental improvisations on stage dispense with that and the music truly gets a-live.

Alternately, pick up "Wake," the two-disc compilation that covers everything except the 2005 live albums and the new 2012 album... it's a solid representation. A Passage in Time is another comp, but it leans too heavily on Aion and the Serpent's Egg.

I'm a total DCD newbie. I've only heard Spleen and Ideal, but I've been playing it nonstop since i got it a few weeks ago. Particularly the second half, where the same synth cymbal noise starts to make frequent appearances in multiple songs.

xxpost - ah, yes - 'Wake' is right on. having everything by them, of course I forgot about that one.

And the new album has two or three of their best songs ever, so it's worth your time. Return of the She-King is just out of this world. Wish they would release a live album from the 2012/2013 tour.

if you like Rimbaud, search the late Hector Zazou's 'Sahara Blue' disc from 1992. it sets to music Rimbaud's poems and texts (chiefly in English translations, but also in their original French, and Hebrew too) sung and performed by an international all-star (well, art-rock all-star) line-up which is not a mess, but one of the most impressive albums of the '90s (as other Zazou projects of the same kind are, really). among Bill Laswell, Khaled, Sylvian/Sakamoto, Patti Smith and Gerard Depardieu, Dead Can Dance perform two songs/poems - both being among the best things they ever did. the Perry-sung track is, as the album's title suggests, North African desert soundscapes + (obviously, given the subject) European/French/Belgian melancholy/debauchment. Gerrard's piece, on the other hand, is very much goth updated, seeing as she sings about Ophelia drowning (in English, which is a rarity for her singing tyle) amongst electronic waters.

actually, there is a lone album of theirs in my mentions which I did not describe in a nutshell for you: Into the Labyrinth (1993). it's many people's fav DCD. it's a beautiful distillation of every influence they show and run with across their careers: goth, Gaelic, aboriginal, polyrhythmic stuff. it's exceptionally strong as songs, atmospheres, production, and vocal delivery go, and spawned many of their concert staples from then on. it was my way in with them, they kind of made a bigger splash with this one, their first getting distributed in America, too. (I'm sure there are hard-line goths somewhere saying they sold out to America with this one; it goes with the territory - pun not intended.) the Lisa stuff especially has a forceful, waking-dream esoteric quality while being grounded by hypnotic polyrhythms. on the Brendan front, everyone loves what he did there with a harrowing Brecht poem about iniquity throughout history ('How Fortunate the Man with None') - never has nihilism been so close to piety.

I sound so fan-ish, and they're not even my favourite band : )

I love Kiko off the new one so much. Some of the stuff on there is just too grandiose for me in a blockbuster soundtrack way, but the second half of that one song is transcendent. Children Of The Sun is good too, the optimism of that song makes a nice antidote to listening to the Swans album too much.

I like Kiko well enough, but more in theory than in practice - the problem I have with them as they stand now, is they sound stiff and unmovable, both on record and live. they should get out more, metaphorically speaking. I agree that Children of the Sun (and All in Good Time) is one of their best. some people have criticised the simplicity of the lyrics, but I love it.

yes, the second half of Kiko is their only link to the previous album. I wish it sounded a bit more freewheeling, though. then again, you could always spot the sampled seams on their later records, which did not detract from their greatness.

Happily, I found Spleen and Ideal on vinyl day before yesterday. I'M IN LOVE.

lol there is a version of "ubiquitous mr lovegrove" on youtube that is just clips from darren aronofsky's the fountain

https://eleusis2021.eu/portfolio-posts/dead-can-dance-eleusis/?lang=en

oh, and Eleusis has won the bid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusis -> "On 11 November 2016 Eleusis was named the European Capital of Culture for 2021."

I did not expect to see this today:

http://figureskatersonline.com/news/2018/08/28/at-age-28-alex-johnson-is-set-to-make-his-grand-prix-debut/

My short program is to “Song of the Stars” by Dead Can Dance. I actually choreographed it myself. Initially I didn’t want to, because I love working with other choreographers, but Page [Lipe, my coach] thought it would be a great challenge for me. It has a modern yet tribal feel to it.

in unrelated news, Lisa Gerrard does vocals on four tracks here, released back in May of this year:

https://www.discogs.com/The-Mystery-Of-The-Bulgarian-Voices-Featuring-Lisa-Gerrard-BooCheeMish/release/12050063

hope they share some info about their new album soon, apparently it was mixed in April

x-post. Just posted about the Bulgarian Choir album on their thread.