tek's rating: 
Dead Can Dance is an Australian band that formed in 1981, consisting of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. 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.
Into the Labyrinth
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This is the band's sixth studio album, released in 1993. It's their first studio album to be released in the U.S., but either the second or third album that I got. (I can't remember whether I got this or "Toward the Within" after I got "Spiritchaser".) The liner notes contain lyrics for five of the tracks.
1. "Yulunga (spirit dance)": Well, it definitely sounds spiritual, but it doesn't sound very danceable, at least not until about halfway through. But I like the whole thing. It sounds to me like aboriginal mixed with Arabian music. It's not so much singing as chanting, by Gerrard.
2. "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove": This one has singing in English by Perry, though the music sounds kind of Arabian or something, mixed with some electronic-sounding music. The lyrics are a bit sad. It's good, but I liked the first track better.
3. "The Wind That Shakes the Barley": This is a traditional Irish song, sung in English by Gerrard. It's deeply mournful, but quite lovely.
4. "The Carnival Is Over": Sung in English by Perry. It's kind of whimsical.
5. "Ariadne": This is a fairly short song, sung by Gerrard, but without lyrics, as far as I could tell. It's pretty.
6. "Saldek": This is the shortest track, at 1:07, sung by Gerrard in some other language. I like it.
7. "Towards the Within": This is sung in some other language by both Perry and Gerrard (mostly Gerrard). It reminds me a lot of the kind of stuff they would later do on "Spiritchaser", which is a good thing.
8. "Tell Me About the Forest (you once called home)": Sung in English by Perry, though I have some trouble following the lyrics. (Actually, it's always hard for me, because his voice always sounds kind of echo-y.) The song sounds good, though.
9. "The Spider's Stratagem": Sung in some other language by Gerrard. I can't make out any of the words, but they sound possibly French to me (or possibly not). But the style of singing and the music mostly sound more Middle Eastern, or something.
10. "Emmeleia": This sounds like a foreign language, but according to Wikipedia it isn't any language. It's sung by both Gerrard and Perry.
11. "How Fortunate the Man with None": This is the longest track, at around 9 minutes. It's sung in English by Perry. I find it rather depressing, but it's good.
Well, at least a couple of instruments are from India, so that's probably what I should have said instead of "Arabian" or "Middle Eastern". I quite like all the tracks, and somehow that adds up to kind of loving the album. Not as much as I love "Spiritchaser", though. And I don't think that's just because I've listened to that album a lot more than I've listened to this one. But this one's really good, too. The whole thing has a sort of dreamlike quality.
Toward the Within
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This is the band's first live album, released in 1994. It contains fifteen songs, four of which appeared on previous studio albums, though I think all of them had been done in live performances before this. Review coming soon.
1. "Rakim"
2. "Persian Love Song"
3. "Desert Song"
4. "Yulunga (Spirit Dance)": from "Into the Labyrinth".
5. "Piece for Solo Flute"
6. "The Wind That Shakes the Barley": from "Into the Labyrinth".
7. "I Am Stretched on Your Grave"
8. "I Can See Now"
9. "American Dreaming" Not surprisingly, this is the most American-sounding song on the album, but it still manages to sound like world music, too.
10. "Cantara": from "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun".
11. "Oman"
12. "The Song of the Sybil": from "Aion". I think this one sounds somewhere between medieval cathedral music and Dracula music.
13. "Tristan"
14. "Sanvean"
15. "Don't Fade Away"
Well, I don't have specific things to say about every song, but every song is epic. Some songs are in English, some in other languages, some in both English and another language. It's just an amazing album from start to finish... but I still love it a bit less than I do "Spiritchaser".
spiritchaser
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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.
