Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance is an Australian musical project formed in 1981 in Melbourne by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. The band relocated to London, England, in May 1982. Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described Dead Can Dance's style as "constructed soundscapes of mesmerising grandeur and solemn beauty; African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chant, Middle Eastern mantras and art rock."
Having disbanded in 1998, they reunited briefly in 2005 for a world tour and reformed in 2011, releasing a new album (Anastasis) and embarking on several tours.
Formation and early years
Dead Can Dance formed in Melbourne, Australia in August 1981 with Paul Erikson on bass guitar, Lisa Gerrard (ex-Microfilm) on vocals, Simon Monroe (Marching Girls) on drums and Brendan Perry (also of Marching Girls) on vocals and guitar. Gerrard and Perry were a domestic couple. In May 1982, the band left Monroe in Australia and moved to London, England, where they signed with alternative rock label 4AD. With the duo, the initial United Kingdom line-up were Paul Erikson and Peter Ulrich.
Dead Can Dance (1981–1998)
Dead Can Dance (1981–1998) (2001) is a four-disc box set, containing three CDs of music spanning Dead Can Dance's career and a DVD of their 1994 video release Toward the Within.
While most of the tracks are taken from previously released albums, this set also contains a large number of rarities. "Frontier (Demo)" and "The Protagonist" were originally released on the 1987 4AD compilation Lonely Is an Eyesore. "Labour of Love," "Ocean," "Orion," and "Threshold" were recorded for the John Peel Show in 1983. In 1984, a follow-up Peel Session produced the version of "Carnival of Light" contained in this set. "Sloth (Radio)" was recorded for radio and a studio version was later released on Brendan Perry's solo album Eye of the Hunter. "Bylar", a Lisa Gerrard and Robert Perry (Brendan's brother) composition, was taken from a live performance recorded on 10 July 1996 at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, Pennsylvania for the Echoes public radio show. It was originally released in 1996 on The Echoes Living Room Concerts Volume 2. "Sambatiki" was previously released as an accompanying track on the Spiritchaser tour programme. "The Lotus Eaters" is a previously unreleased track, from the sessions for the band's aborted eighth album.
Dead Can Dance (album)
Dead Can Dance is the debut studio album by Australian musical act Dead Can Dance. It was released on 27 February 1984 by record label 4AD. This album differs greatly from later Dead Can Dance releases in its incorporation of post-punk and gothic rock musical styles.
Background
On the name of the album—and indeed the band—the band states on their official website:
Recording
The album, according to the sleeve notes, was recorded at "Vineyard".
The instrumentation on the album consists of guitars, bass guitar and drums, with added percussion and the very distinct sound of the yangqin, as played by Lisa Gerrard. The musicians who performed on the album were Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, Paul Erikson, James Pinker, Scott Rodger and Peter Ulrich. Erikson returned to Australia and was replaced by Rodger.
Musical style
AllMusic commented on the album's sound: "Bearing much more resemblance to the similarly gripping, dark early work of bands like the Cocteau Twins and The Cure than to the later fusions of music that would come to characterize the duo's sound, Dead Can Dance is as goth as it gets in many places."
