[PIAS] As a long-time fan, I found Dead Can Dance’s comeback album Anastasis a tad disappointing – that mesmerising sheen of old seemed oddly suppressed, and I don’t think the use of machined percussives helped matters either. Anyways, hearing Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry had a new album out, I thought I’d give them another try — and I’m so glad I did
Dead Can Dance
5 posts
4AD The Serpent’s Egg (1988) The Serpent’s Egg was a solemn secular experience for the most part, seeking sanctuary in the monastically sparse, a warm cathedral backing to some prized vocal action, Lisa Gerrard‘s phonic phoenix of a voice glinting Byzantine.
4AD Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (1987) This was the band’s third masterpiece, and a firm favourite of mine. The otherworldliness of Spleen And Ideal is here leaning towards the symphonic, a neo-classical oomph held on an animated skyline. As with Ideal, Brendan Perry is in fine fettle, dedicating a whole side to pondering life’s woes, drawing inspiration from the historical, mythical, going for the emotional jugular in […]
4AD Dead Can Dance (1984) Born out of the dark and then-derelict Isle if Dogs in London, where Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry scratched out a living since relocating from Australia. This was Dead Can Dance‘s début – a collection of songs that had been percolating away for over four years before.
Label: 4AD Format: DVD+3xCD There is an air of finality about the title and contents of 1981-1998. With the dissolution of their musical partnership into separate solo careers, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry are no longer Dead Can Dance, but as the extensive essay on the group included in the luxurious slip-cased hardbacked book (jam-packed with landscape photos) which makes up the packaging of the set observes, the […]