Dead Can Dance - Dead Can Dance

Dead Can Dance

Dead Can Dance

1984

Ethereal Wave Gothic Rock Post Punk

Australia

Tracklist:


"The Fatal Impact" – 3:21
"The Trial" – 3:42
"Frontier" – 3:13
"Fortune" – 3:47
"Ocean" – 3:21
"East of Eden" – 3:23
"Threshold" – 3:51
"A Passage in Time" – 4:03
"Wild in the Woods" – 3:46
"Musica Eternal" – 3:52
The following tracks were originally released in 1984 as the Garden of the Arcane Delights EP and were included on the CD release of the album:
"Carnival of Light" – 3:31
"In Power We Entrust the Love Advocated" – 4:11
"The Arcane" – 3:49
"Flowers of the Sea" – 3:28


     Dead Can Dance (sometimes referred to as DCD) were an ethereal neoclassical world music duo which formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981. Its mainstays were Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. The band relocated to London in May 1982 and disbanded in 1998, but reunited temporarily for a world tour in 2005. Their 1996 album Spiritchaser reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums Chart. Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described Dead Can Dance as having an ambient style of world music that "constructed soundscapes of mesmerising grandeur and solemn beauty... with African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chants, Middle Eastern mantras and art-rock".
   
     Dead Can Dance is the debut album recorded by Dead Can Dance in 1984. This album differs greatly from later Dead Can Dance releases. The instrumentation consisted of guitars, bass and drums with added percussion and the very distinct sound of the Yang Chin as played by Lisa Gerrard. This album has been at times described as post-punk or goth rock. The musicians who performed on this album, as well as the EP, were Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, Paul Erikson, James Pinker, Scott Rodger and Peter Ulrich. Erikson returned to Australia and was replaced by Rodger. The album was not released in North America for some time because 4AD wanted to have a proper label deal and not license the artists individually. Modern English And Cocteau Twins were the exceptions at that time. The band touring was limited to Europe and Scandinavia during this period because the album was not readily available. The early live show was incredibly dynamic and very soon a dedicated live following evolved. In these early days, the band was run in a very democratic way. Something that would change as the years progressed.
     The album was mixed twice as the band were not happy with the way it was sounding after the first pass, very much over processed. Being mixed by inexperienced recording artists didn't help too much either. The album would now benefit from a proper mix so that the songs could actually live for the first time.
     The beginning of "The Fatal Impact" is taken from the 1964 film Zulu and was recorded off of a TV broadcast onto a cassette player. The Drum Machine used was built into the same cassette player. The percussion used was 3 upturned empty 5 gallon paint tins tied together. One of the main reasons this song was not performed live was due to the unorthodox instrumentation.
     No merchandise was made at this time as the band didn't want to commercially exploit their artwork.