tek's rating: 
Dead Can Dance is an Australian band that formed in 1981, their genre is called "neoclassical dark wave", but they incorporate all sorts of musical styles from around the world. It's all very ethereal. I probably first heard of them when I read a review for the album "spiritchaser" in Entertainment Weekly, though of course that was far from their first album. The review made it sound interesting to me, so I eventually got that, and later a couple other albums.
spiritchaser
AllMusic; Amazon; Apple Music; Discogs; Spotify; Wikipedia
This is the band's seventh studio album, which came out in 1996, but it's the first one I got. I don't remember when I got the album, but I'm reviewing it in 2024. I've loved it ever since I first listened to it, and I've probably listened to it more than most albums I own. I have sometimes used it to try to help me get to sleep at night, but that never works out. The CD always ends before I'm asleep. I'm not saying it sounds to me like something that would be sleep-inducing, anyway, just that I find it soothing, and kind of makes me feel like my mind is transported to another plane, or something. But at the same time, it makes me feel like I'm sitting at a campfire at night. I also want to say I think the album goes well with burning incense. It would probably also go well with... other things. And even when I'm not trying to get to sleep, I prefer to listen to it in the dark. But it's a good album to listen to at any time. And to me, the whole thing has the feel of Native American (or indigenous in general) music, but to be honest I have no idea what the influences are on the album. Just that it's transcendental. Oh, and the tracks tend to flow directly from one to the next, without the break of a few seconds that I'm used to hearing on most artists' albums.
1. "Nierika": The title is a Wixarika word, from Mexico's Huichol culture. It apparently has various meanings.
2. "Song of the Stars": This is the longest song on the album, at over 10 minutes. It starts out in English, but most of it is some other language. The music is mostly indigenous-sounding, but some parts are pretty groovy, too, I'd say.
3. "Indus"
4. "Song of the Dispossessed": This one is in English.
5. "Dedicacé Outò": I don't know what language this is or what it means. But it's the shortest track, at only about one and a quarter minutes. And it's purely instrumental.
6. "The Snake and the Moon"
7. "Song of the Nile"
8. "Devorzhum": I read somewhere that this is a made-up word. But it's supposed to be a lullaby for the spirit. So maybe I wasn't so crazy to use the album to try to get to sleep.
At first I was calling each individual track "memorable", but I decided to stop doing that, because they're all memorable to me, considering how many times I've listened to the album. Anyway, I'm sorry I don't have much to say about any of the songs, and nothing at all about some of them. It's hard to get specific, because the whole album puts me in the same mood, which is to say, spiritual. And it's all just amazingly beautiful, and often serene.