According to a recentRolling Stone interview, Brendan Perry - one half of the duo known as Dead Can Dance - first conceived the concept for their ninth studio album, "Dionysus", while on a trip to Spain many years ago. Perry was at one of the tamborrada festivals - markedly pagan festivals thinly veiled with Christian trappings, common all over the Mediterranean. They wandered the streets all night, playing drums with hundreds of other drummers, drinking wine, eating olives until they achieved a trance-like state. Perry realized that the whole thing was very Dionysian, similar to the bacchanals honoring the god of wine since time immemorial from ancient Greece and Thrace to Rome, where even the the senators banned the bawdy celebrations upon punishment of death. Those familiar with philosophy will know that Nietzsche tried to encompass a duality of thought by utilizing the dichotomy of two Greek gods - Apollo, who represents the logical and the rational whose adherents worshiped in cities within marble temples, and Dionysus, the god of wine and dance, who appeals to emotion and whose celebrants worshiped in nature in the trees, drunk and giving in to bodily desires.
This dichotomy has always matched Dead Can Dance. Lisa Gerrard has always been the Dionysian - emoting pure feeling with her music, eschewing words to convey her message, relying instead on nonsense syllables. By contrast, Perry was always the Apollonian, his clear baritone always intoning a clear message. This time, however, the band has completed given over to the Dionysian, abandoning spoken language, even giving up traditional song arrangements in favor of a stream-of-consciousness format that consists of two large Acts complete with movements, more like a classical piece meant to be listened to in one sitting.
Dead Can Dance then
Dead Can Dance has always been pagan. From their song titles ("Ariadne") to their lyrics ("The Earth is our Mother, She taught us to embrace the light; now the Lord is Master; She suffers in eternal night."). But also in their sound. To the band, music is a religious experience, a sort of sacrament, able to transport us from the mundane and see visions of other places on the periphery of our psyche. To accomplish this, they have utilized a variety of musical influences and instruments - in the beginning with post-punk and gothic rock, and then using full-fledged orchestras to explore medieval and pre-Renaissance music and finally going full-on tribal with influences ranging from the Middle East to India to Africa to using Native American and Vodun prayers.
Dionysus
"Dionysus" is the best Dead Can Dance release in years, surpassing even the excellent "Anastasis" in terms of innovation and creativity. The music transports you into the myth of Dionysus by resurrecting ancient instruments from the Mediterranean like the mizmar, harp, dulcimer, bagpipes, and violin, plus a variety of drums, creating not so much melodies but musical landscapes. You will see the jagged mountainsides of ancient Greece and the Aegean Sea. This illusion is further strengthened by the use of sound effects - waves crashing on rocks, birds singing, and goats being herded. Perry arranges both his and Gerrard's vocals into complex choral arrangements ranging from trance-inducing chants to reverberating Middle Eastern ululations to achingly sweet harmonies resembling the traditional arrangements performed by the Bulgarian State Women's Choir, bringing to mind the maenads, Dionysus's crazed female followers. The ebbing flow of the music, with its shifting tempos, tries to evoke the ecstatic state sought by those of ancient days who sought the Dionysian Mysteries. The names of the movements suggest at the mythology - "The Liberator", as Dionysus was supposed to free people from their inhibitions, "Dance of the Bacchantes", as Bacchus was the Roman incarnation of Dionysus, "The Mountain" and "The Forest", as this was nature worship, "The Invocation" as a prayer, and "Psychopomp" as an entity who guides one into the afterlife. The result is an unusual collection of music, unusual even for Dead Can Dance whose brand of music has always been difficult to describe anyway. As indescribable as it may be, the album is also unforgettable, and a kind of vindication for those of us who long for them to reunite during their long hiatus.
A couple of side notes - this is Dead Can Dance's second album away from their parent label - the prestigious 4AD label.
Second, I have included the video for "The Mountain" in a link below, directed by Lukasz Pytlik. The video is as cinematic as the music, and the director has said that it was almost as if he had no control and the images arranged themselves. I wish they had made a movie to accompany the whole album.
Back in the day, the official magazine of Tower Records - Pulse - had a section called "The Desert Island Top 10". The premise is - if you were stranded on a desert island, but had the option of taking ten of anything, what would you take? For the Halloween season, for this post, I will select my Top 10 favorite gothic songs of all time, in no particular order. Yes, I cut my teeth on '80s gothic. Wore the black lipstick, the guyliner and sported the obligatory black, read the Anne Rice chronicles. These are the songs I would die for. Prepared to be spooked! Tell me your favorite songs in the comments section!
1. Christian Death "Figurative Theater"(1982) - As a teen, there was nothing more shocking than L.A. deathrock band, Christian Death, and singer, Rozz Williams, who was occasionally known to wear dead cats as part of his scene's morbid couture. "In the shallow holes of a thousand eyes..." start the lyrics to a song that I copied onto notebooks as an angst-ridden teen, the words seemingly matching the black mood I felt. The violent drumbeat and lurching guitar set to Rozz's droning voice, all of it churning together and frothing to a spitting intensity. It sounded forbidden then. It kind of sounds dated now, although it is easy to see the influence they have had on music through the decades. It was still a sad day in 1998 when Rozz Williams committed suicide, finally giving into the darkness. Rozz was no poseur. He truly walked in the darkness.
2. 45 Grave "Evil" (1983)- "Music that Christians don't have to play backwards," says the announcer in the video below. And that description fits yet another California deathrock band, 45 Grave. This band was always really fun, a clever mixture of '60s surf rock, punk, and horror, they had a stage presence that was as much a part of their performance as their music, fronted by sinister frontwoman, Dinah Cancer, looking like something out of The Addams Family. Although "Evil" sounds like it could be the opening theme from The Munsters, except with Cancer growling her condemnations of, "You're evil!". "Sleep In Safety" was an important album to me in my preteen years and remains, all these decades later, the perfect Halloween album.
3. Tamaryn "Softcore" (2016) - Kiwi artist, Tamaryn, now on tour with Lush, is one of the newer artists at the forefront of the shoegaze revival, but she is known to veer into darker directions, like this gothic gem. The song is off this year's album, and the video here is off of this year's live KEXP performance. Amped-up drums and a caustic bass line sounding like something right out of Sisters of Mercy, Tamaryn's haunted moaning, and guitars screeching, whispered samples, everything coalescing and blending into something that resembles a fevered pitch - something at once beautiful, disturbing, and cool af. Tamaryn is a new artist that you should definitely check out. I will be reviewing her entire new album soon.
4. Xmal Deutschland "Polarlicht" (1986) - An oft forgotten German act, they signed to the prestigious 4AD label who was responsible for releasing much of the gothic bands of the '80s. This song made in onto a mix cassette tape I had as a teen, and I soon had a chance to explore more of their music. The song is mournful and dreamy with Anja Huwe's powerful voice soaring above the landscape, but don't expect to understand it unless you speak German, Sadly, this band never made it out of the '80s, but their impact on gothic and darkwave is undeniable. Any true fan of the genre can tell you about Xmal Deutschland.
5. Cocteau Twins "Garlands" (1982) - Ah, which one of my collections would be complete without Cocteau Twins? This song is off of their debut album. They were a new band out of Grangemouth, Scotland, and this is the only album to feature Will Heggie as a member with his heavy bass guitar. He would soon leave to form proto-shoegaze band, Lowlife. His departure would allow them to explore the more ethereal experiments that they are known for. But this album? Straight up gothic. Heggie's bass chords dominate. Robin Guthrie scratches out spooky noises on his guitar, admitting only later that he only did this because he really didn't know how to play. Elizabeth Fraser's wavering voice offers the names of pretty flowers in a way that they evoke wrongness rather than beauty. This whole album is a classic and one that I listen to several times a year.
6. Modern English "16 Days" (1981) - When people think of Modern English, they think of MTV, '80s one-hit wonders, and their one big hit, "I Melt With You", a happy-go-lucky love tune. They don't think of a gothic band, and, yet, their first album was just that. The song starts out with eerie guitar effects that only grow more nightmarish as the song progresses, followed by samples extolling the horrors of the Cold War era. The bass line is earth-shattering, and Robbie Grey spits out his lyrics in a post-punk fury. Then the song ends in a wash of futile noise and chaos. This Mortal Coil would later cover this song as their very first single, with Liz Fraser from Cocteau Twins and Gordon Sharp from Cindytalk, another great goth band, on vocals.
7. Bauhaus "She's In Parties" (1983) - No goth collection would be complete without Bauhaus? But whereas most might expect me to include the ubiquitous and Halloween-friendly "Bela Lugosi's Dead", the goth anthem, no, I am including this selection instead - the final single from their final album for more than twenty years. These guys created this sound, created this genre. Peter Murphy's vocals are savage, contrasting Daniel Ash's soft background pining. The harmonica seems out of place, and yet Bauhaus offers one last stark masterpiece before venturing into different projects. Believe me - Tones On Tail or Love & Rockets would have made it onto this list had I not already covered these bands extensively.
8. Dead Can Dance - "De Profundis (Out of the Depths of Sorrow)" (1985) - The very first time I heard Dead Can Dance was this song. It was a life-changing experience. I was blown away. I never knew pop music could be so... panoramic. The song goes from silence and explodes into an orchestral swathe so huge that you can't help see images, and then Lisa Gerrard's voice crashes like a hurricane against a mountainside, singing, not in words, but pure emotion. Then the song unravels with a single male singing a wordless Gregorian chant alongside the peals of a bell that sound not so much monastic as pagan. Dead Can Dance defy classification, but it was the goths who loved them first.
9. Sisters of Mercy "Black Planet" (1985) - The album this song came from became so definitively known as "goth" that everyone that came afterwards tried to imitate this sound - even Andrew Eldritch. By the way, this is my favorite lineup of the Sisters, which includes the creative force of Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams, who went on to form The Mission UK right after this album. In this song, Hussey's guitars are crystal clear with the Celtic lilt that he is known for, and Eldritch sings in that wavering, spooky bass that would be imitated by goths forever after.
10. The Cure "Lullaby" (1989) - I had a hard time picking the last band, because there are so many goth artists that I love. But I had to ultimately settle on the most Halloweeny of songs. The Cure had developed the reputation of being dark and gothic, but, in truth, by the time "Disintegration" came along, the band had veered into some very un-gothic territories involving caterpillars, love cats, being hot hot hot, and kisses. Imagine Robert Smith prancing around in a huge teddy bear suit. It was enough to make me shake my head. But with this song - and accompanying creepy video - The Cure went dark and gothic again. Maybe even more gothic than they had previously been. All of the black-clad minions breathed a sigh of relief. Smith sings about being eaten in his bed by a thousand shivering holes all set to the rhythm of pizzicato violins. The song was nightmarish and troubling, and the band redeemed the genre to live for another Halloween.
It was 1987, and, in my 17 year-old opinion, the best record label in the universe was 4AD.
This was the label that had given us such great acts in the early '80s as Bauhaus, Modern English, the Birthday Party, and Lydia Lunch. Today, they continue to amaze with acts such as Iron & Wine, TV On the Radio, Bon Iver, and Purity Ring.
In 1987, it was Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance, as well as new acts, the Pixies and Throwing Muses (both out of Boston).
As a promotion of their music, the British label put out a compilation that showcased their best bands. I think I made a special trip to Tower Records in Tempe, Arizona to buy it. The LP came in a really nice case complete with a booklet with photographs and articles of each band, produced by 23 Envelope - 4AD's visual department. I treasured this LP. They also released the album on VHS, also produced by 23 Envelope, with each video shot in grainy black and white - very artsy. I no longer have the LP, but I still have the VHS cassette. I wanted to add it to my collection, and so I decided to download this treasure digitally. Of course, I decided to review it.
Now that many years have passed since I first bought this album (26!), it is easy to see how much influence that Ivo Watts-Russel, the iconoclastic founder of the 4AD label, had over his musicians. Just like the videos, the music all has common aspects. This makes for a great concept album, envisioned by each of the different artists.
The first song is a a rowdy tune by Colourbox, an electronic outfit. The song, "Hot Doggie", has a dance beat and rocking guitar layered beneath a barrage of samples - most of them from movies like "Evil Dead" and "The Last Starfighter". Colourbox created a hit that same year under the name M/A/R/S called "Pump Up the Volume". You may have heard of it. (It was also a 4AD release.)
The second song is "Acid, Bitter, and Sad" by This Mortal Coil - one of my favorite bands of all time. This Mortal Coil, however, is not really a band. It is a project concocted by 4AD executives Ivo Watts-Russel and John Fryer, who both serve as musicians. This Mortal Coil would typically do cover songs from late '60s and early '70s acts like Tim Buckley, and each song would consist of a series of guest musicians, most of them from the 4AD catalog. They released three albums, and I would highly recommend them to anyone. "Acid, Bitter, and Sad" is a typical example of This Mortal Coil's music - dreamy and ethereal. It starts out with wind chimes and soft electronic music with vocals provided by '90s house music artist Alison Limerick, her voice run through an early equivalent of AutoTune. Then the song build up to an orchestral crescendo. A very nice song.
Track #3 is "Cut the Tree" by Wolfgang Press, also one of my favorite '80s bands. The song is very slow-paced and was always reminiscent of "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by the Police. Except that the vocals provided by Michael Allen (who sport white dreadlocks in the video) are deep, typical of most gothic bands of this era, and sets the song apart, along with its stark lyrics.
The next song is "Fish" by Throwing Muses, and the title "Lonely is an Eyesore" comes from the lyrics of this Boston quartet. They were fresh and young at the time they were signed to 4AD, formed by step-sisters Kirstin Hersh and Tanya Donelly (who went on to co-found the Breeders with Pixies' bassist Kim Deal, also a 4AD act.) I had the chance of meeting and seeing Throwing Muses live in 1989. They opened up for New Order, and the thing that struck me - this band was fronted by three women that scarcely stood above five feet, and they rocked. This song - driven by its staccato drum beat and Hersh's wailing vocals - is no different. The album contains a studio version of this song, but the video is a messier impromptu version of the song that captures some of their live energy.
This is followed by "Frontier" by Dead Can Dance. Many may not know that this legendary set of musicians started out in the punk communes of Melbourne, Australia in the late '70s. They would assemble and make music on whatever implement they could find - pots or pans. On their self-titled debut album released in 1984, Dead Can Dance released a studio version of this song. But on this compilation, it's the version of this song from their demo, which was made in one take with Lisa Gerrard making up her nonsensical lyrics on the spot. The interesting thing about this song - the instrumentation consists of them banging on metal drums filled with water, true to their roots.
Cocteau Twins - anyone who know me knows that this band (whom I was fortunate to see live in 1994, shortly before their breakup) is one of my favorite bands. This is a band that has gone through many phases - from spooky gothic in the early '80s, to the ancient Greek of "Treasure" to the liquidy chimes of "Victorialand". This song - "Crushed" - was from their "Love's Easy Tears" phase. It is scintillating jangle pop. Liz Fraser's vocals are resplendent. The best description that I have ever heard of Robin Guthrie's guitars is "feather-light guitars that sound like anything but guitars". Their music is so unique and has always withstood classification. This song is a jeweel.
Dij Juz is a band that I still know little about, but I always enjoyed their song "No Motion", which is an instrumental that seems to have strong jazz roots. A guitar driven song, it starts out with a strong bass line and a watery guitar, and they it splashes into its climax.
Clan of Xymox was one of my favorite bands. Their first few albums still are favorites of mine. I used to describe them to people in the '80s as "dance goth". Eventually, they became a parody of the gothic image people have of them. I look at their live videos now and laugh at the black lace and poofy hair. But at their core, they were really good songwriters, especially on this catchy tune "Muscoviet Mosquito". At the time, it was rare to combine acoustic guitar with electronic dance music, but that was Xymox's signature. The infectious rhythm is carried by Anke Wolbert's rapid fire guitar strumming, and Ronny Moorings wailing vocals. In fact, now that I think of it, I only liked Xymox as long as Anke Wolbert and Pieter Nooten were involved. Once they left, I lost interest.
This compilation is completed with "The Protagonist" by Dead Can Dance. At the time, DCD always stated that they wished to write soundtracks, and, since then, their music has graced several soundtracks (Heat, The Myst, ect.), and Lisa Gerrard has gone on to score several films (Gladiator, Whale Rider, etc.) This piece feels like it could be from a movie - grandiose and epic. It is an instrumental complete with a full orchestra. The brass section is particularly moving, along with an excellent oboe solo halfway through the song. The song ends with a crashing finale, and diminishes away with chimes.
This album is a must-have for aficianados of 4AD's music, and it is a good intro to those curious about the artsy side of music in the '80s.
I have to admit. I have been waiting to do this review for a long time. I never thought this day would come. It has been sixteen years since Dead Can Dance came out with a new album.
There are times in my life when - the first time I heard certain music - it changed me forever. A sort of "WTF" moment. The first time I heard AC/DC. Rick James. Korn. And one of those moments was the first time I heard Dead Can Dance.
It was 1986. Sixteen years-old. Their album "Spleen and Ideal." When I first heard the name "Dead Can Dance", I assumed that it was gothic music. And it was, kind of. But it transcended that label. World music. New Age. It went kind of beyond all of them.
The majestic sweep of "De Profundis" with the crashing voice of Lisa Gerrard. She wasn't singing words. It sometimes sounded Latin. Sometimes it sounded Arabic. In truth, there weren't any words to it at all. Like the speech of an infant, it was the pure expression of emotion. The next song was "Ascension" - a duet of trombones that literally made me imagine climbing the face of a snow-capped mountain peak. To this day, I can think of no better song than "Avatar". It is so stripped down - a drum, a bass guitar, and a scintillating hammered dulcimer with Lisa Gerrard's wavering, Stevie Nicks-ish voice building to such an emotional crescendo that it still brings tears to my eyes.
Of course, Lisa Gerrard is only one half of Dead Can Dance. The other half is Brendan Perry. His smooth, collected baritone was the antithesis of Gerrard's voice on songs like "The Cardinal Sin". Truthfully, I much preferred Lisa Gerrard's songs and would find myself fast-forwarding past HIS songs. As I have grown older, I appreciate Brendan Perry's songs much more.
This album changed my life. It changed the way I looked at art. It influenced my poetry. I got more into classical music. I even started reading French poet, Charles Baudelaire. (The name "Spleen and Ideal" is taken from his poetry.)
I also got into Dead Can Dance's back catalog - one EP and one self-titled album. Dead Can Dance came out of the punk movement in Melbourne, Australia in the late 1970s. They lived in a communal house and made music with whatever they could find in their house. In fact, "Frontier" - from their first album - was recorded by banging on oil drums filled with water frosted with Lisa Garrard's spooky voice. They were not musicians and taught themselves to make music on whatever they could find.
Soon, they relocated to England and signed to the prestigious 4AD label.
When I was seventeen, they followed up with "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun", which was all orchestral, all recorded inside of a cathedral. I bought this on vinyl - except that I only had a record player that didn't work. On my first listen, I spun the record my hand, listening to the faint sounds coming out of the needle and grooves, with no aid of speakers, or even electricity.
My senior year of high school, I had my parents drive me to the nearest record store 40 miles away to buy "The Serpent's Egg". By now, Dead Can Dance was steering towards a more tribal sound, with lots of percussion. My sophmore year of college was dominated by "Aion", which sounded like a pagan Renaissance Fair.
When Dead Can Dance broke up around 1997, I was devastated. Apparently, the marriage of the creative geniuses of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry was more than just musical. They were a couple, and when the relationship ended, so did the band. This band had been an important part of my life for more than a decade.
For the next ten years, I followed both of their solo careers. One of the strangest moments for me was listening to the end credits of the movie "Gladiator" and hearing Lisa Gerrard's voice. In the glorious days of the '80s, in the age of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, I was listening to stuff like Dead Can Dance. No one had even heard of it, thought it was weird. I played "Song of Sophia" in my college Music Appreciation class as my selection to share with other students. And now, as people filed out of a movie theater, I was listening to Lisa Gerrard sing for a Holywood Blockbuster. It was ironic. She has since gone on to do several movies, including "The Whale Rider".
In 2005, the band reunited for touring purposes, and earlier this year, when they announced a new album called "Anastasis", I was ecstatic.
What can I say? The album is excellent. None of them have ever been as magical and as entrancing as "Spleen and Ideal". But it is still good.
As usual, the songs are split up into "His & Hers". The album opens up with "Children of the Sun". From its first strains, I gave a sigh of relief - it was good to hear them again. It sounds just like Dead Can Dance - except with better engineering. Lisa Gerrard's songs "Anabasis", "Agape", and "Kiko" sound very much like her solo efforts. When I listen to them, I picture myself in a caravan with Marco Polo, traveling across the Gobi Desert..
Brendan Perry's songs are very good as well. "Amnesia" - which is the first single off of the album - and "Opium" are very moving to me. "Return of the She-King" is a collaborative effort between the two of them. It is a nice Celtic tune that makes me think of Queen Boudica.
It is nice to see Dead Can Dance back and in good form. It is good to see that age has only improved their talent and not diminished it. I would recommend this album to anyone.
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