180g Clear Vinyl Double LP! First DCD Album in 16 Years!
Lisa Gerrard & Brendan Perry Reunite!
Dead Can Dance release their first album since 1996's Spiritchaser.
On the cover of "Anastasis", Dead Can Dance's first album in 16 years, is a field of sunflowers, ripened, and then blackened by the sun, standing with sad, slightly crowned heads. Less dead than dormant, the heads and stems will one day be chopped, but then via the roots, will return. "Anastasis" is the Greek word for 'resurrection' and the seemingly dead will dance again.
"I thought 'Anastasis' was a good title given our reunion," explains Brendan Perry, who, with Lisa Gerrard, formed the band in Melbourne, Australia in 1981, releasing seven studio albums, and one live album, before going their own ways after 1996's 'Spiritchaser'. "'Anastasis' also means 'in between two stages'," he adds. "Regeneration comes with the next season."
'Anastasis' is perfectly apt given how the album is an astonishing regeneration of the legendary beauty, power and spellbinding nature of the duo's unique sound and vision. Age hasn't withered DCD, not the passing of the years; if anything, the album sounds bolder, stronger, more confident in its vision...
A Greek word to represent the album is equally derived from the music's origins. While Perry can hear echoes of DCD past, "from right across our catalogue," he reckons the core of Anastasis can be found, "slap bang" in the near-Eastern Mediterranean, from Greece and Turkey across to North Africa. "The music I listen to and research becomes both unconsciously and consciously part of a new project, and for this album, I've been fascinated by the classic immutable elements of Greek culture, the depth of their music and their love for song that you don't get as much in the west; the way they combine philosophy and love songs, and throw a bit of science in there too. I love the eastern influence that comes from being a crossroads between east and west, the kaleidoscopic mosaic of those fused cultures, while the further west you go, the more it's a mono-cultural society."
Gerrard takes the lead on four tracks, Anabasis, Agape, Kiko and Return of the She-King, delivered in her wordless Glossolalia, while Perry fronts the remaining four of Children of the Sun, Amnesia , Opium and All In Good Time, whose lyrics embrace the faiths and hopes of humankind, working through our limitations, weaknesses and habits.
Children of the Sun is the albums welcome to the show, statement said Perry. The lyric addresses human evolution and how our genetic code is infused with ancient memory, right up to the present, celebrating nature the Woodstock generations legacy. Amnesia weaves themes of humanitys collective social amnesia how the victors always write history, and if we retain the real truth, we wont keep repeating the same mistakes and how we depend on our memories for our humanity, and that the Greeks saw memory as the greatest muse of all.
Opium, says Perry, is more nihilistic, that opiate state of mind, a form of depression, that traps you, whether its addiction or just circumstances. To not be able to choose a road as they all seem to lead nowhere. But All In Good Time is a positive finale, underlining the old adage that good things come to those who wait; as we grow with age and experience, we see the benefit of not expecting everything to arrive at once.
Signed by 4AD and releasing their first album in 1984, the duo drew rapturous reviews for albums that spanned neo-classical and folk across time and geography, each album selling to a progressively larger audience, the emotional drama of their coming to the attention of the San Francisco ballet, Hermes Perfume and a documentary on Hitler and Stalin; likewise motion pictures such as Heat, The Crossing Guard and Baraka. Gerrard developed her own solo film soundtracks - The Gladiator and The Insider, for example - while Perry worked on solo albums such as 1999's 'Eye Of the Hunter' and 2008's 'Ark'. The pair dissolved their physical relationship in the early ' 90s but something keeps them together - a bond of deep friendship and musical compatibility and understanding, and so Anastasis is born, and Dead Can Dance regenerated.
Features:
180g Vinyl
Clear Vinyl
Double LP
Mastered at MasterLabs by Aidan Foley
Pressed at Optimal in Germany
Gatefold
Includes Digital Download Code
First Album in 16 Years
Greek cultural influences & themes
Selections:
1. Children of the Sun
2. Anabasis
3. Agape
4. Amnesia
5. Kiko
6. Opium
7. Return of the She-King
8. All In Good Time
Lisa Gerrard & Brendan Perry Reunite!
Dead Can Dance release their first album since 1996's Spiritchaser.
On the cover of "Anastasis", Dead Can Dance's first album in 16 years, is a field of sunflowers, ripened, and then blackened by the sun, standing with sad, slightly crowned heads. Less dead than dormant, the heads and stems will one day be chopped, but then via the roots, will return. "Anastasis" is the Greek word for 'resurrection' and the seemingly dead will dance again.
"I thought 'Anastasis' was a good title given our reunion," explains Brendan Perry, who, with Lisa Gerrard, formed the band in Melbourne, Australia in 1981, releasing seven studio albums, and one live album, before going their own ways after 1996's 'Spiritchaser'. "'Anastasis' also means 'in between two stages'," he adds. "Regeneration comes with the next season."
'Anastasis' is perfectly apt given how the album is an astonishing regeneration of the legendary beauty, power and spellbinding nature of the duo's unique sound and vision. Age hasn't withered DCD, not the passing of the years; if anything, the album sounds bolder, stronger, more confident in its vision...
A Greek word to represent the album is equally derived from the music's origins. While Perry can hear echoes of DCD past, "from right across our catalogue," he reckons the core of Anastasis can be found, "slap bang" in the near-Eastern Mediterranean, from Greece and Turkey across to North Africa. "The music I listen to and research becomes both unconsciously and consciously part of a new project, and for this album, I've been fascinated by the classic immutable elements of Greek culture, the depth of their music and their love for song that you don't get as much in the west; the way they combine philosophy and love songs, and throw a bit of science in there too. I love the eastern influence that comes from being a crossroads between east and west, the kaleidoscopic mosaic of those fused cultures, while the further west you go, the more it's a mono-cultural society."
Gerrard takes the lead on four tracks, Anabasis, Agape, Kiko and Return of the She-King, delivered in her wordless Glossolalia, while Perry fronts the remaining four of Children of the Sun, Amnesia , Opium and All In Good Time, whose lyrics embrace the faiths and hopes of humankind, working through our limitations, weaknesses and habits.
Children of the Sun is the albums welcome to the show, statement said Perry. The lyric addresses human evolution and how our genetic code is infused with ancient memory, right up to the present, celebrating nature the Woodstock generations legacy. Amnesia weaves themes of humanitys collective social amnesia how the victors always write history, and if we retain the real truth, we wont keep repeating the same mistakes and how we depend on our memories for our humanity, and that the Greeks saw memory as the greatest muse of all.
Opium, says Perry, is more nihilistic, that opiate state of mind, a form of depression, that traps you, whether its addiction or just circumstances. To not be able to choose a road as they all seem to lead nowhere. But All In Good Time is a positive finale, underlining the old adage that good things come to those who wait; as we grow with age and experience, we see the benefit of not expecting everything to arrive at once.
Signed by 4AD and releasing their first album in 1984, the duo drew rapturous reviews for albums that spanned neo-classical and folk across time and geography, each album selling to a progressively larger audience, the emotional drama of their coming to the attention of the San Francisco ballet, Hermes Perfume and a documentary on Hitler and Stalin; likewise motion pictures such as Heat, The Crossing Guard and Baraka. Gerrard developed her own solo film soundtracks - The Gladiator and The Insider, for example - while Perry worked on solo albums such as 1999's 'Eye Of the Hunter' and 2008's 'Ark'. The pair dissolved their physical relationship in the early ' 90s but something keeps them together - a bond of deep friendship and musical compatibility and understanding, and so Anastasis is born, and Dead Can Dance regenerated.
Features:
180g Vinyl
Clear Vinyl
Double LP
Mastered at MasterLabs by Aidan Foley
Pressed at Optimal in Germany
Gatefold
Includes Digital Download Code
First Album in 16 Years
Greek cultural influences & themes
Selections:
1. Children of the Sun
2. Anabasis
3. Agape
4. Amnesia
5. Kiko
6. Opium
7. Return of the She-King
8. All In Good Time
