Dead Can Dance
Aion

In 1990, at the peak of a brief but intense initial artistic phase, Dead Can Dance released an album that partly defied expectations or at least the predictions of an ever-growing audience eager to discover their further evolution. After debuting in 1984 with the self-titled work, Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard had strung together a trilogy of masterpieces that consolidated an uncommon cultural depth and fully convinced an audience literally enthralled by their sound. Almost impossible to categorize within the vast post-punk panorama and the diverse stable of the British label 4AD of Ivo Watt-Russell, Dead Can Dance had in a few years become cult figures, as well as a sort of missing link of the cultured pop scene, capable of reconciling past and present in a non-pretextual and unpretentious manner.

With the growing attention even outside an early circle of admirers, at the dawn of the new decade, the natural heir to the celebrated previous albums seemed about to definitively seal this ascending trajectory. And further amplify the stylistic mélange that had increasingly emerged in the production of the early years, becoming the trademark of the project. The grandeur, rhythm, and reverberations were a stylistic hallmark of the duo that seemed to converge towards a sort of suggestive neoclassicism pervaded by gothic and esoteric narratives.

Aion, however, bewildered many: the artistic maturity seemed to close once again into a specific niche precisely when everyone expected a broader consecration. The delicate and minimal ballads performed with a scent of oblivion, the majestic choruses punctuated by the lone tolling of a bell no longer had anything of that classical root tinged with gothic. The dimension of Aion is almost ancestral, at times bucolic, introspective.

It certainly was conceived as a work centered on the theme of lost love, directly affected by the end of the relationship between Gerrard and Perry. It immediately revealed in its sound the intent to underline with an almost monographic approach a path of poetic and lyrical medieval and Renaissance inspiration. Thus cloaking itself in a melancholic and reflective atmosphere. Partly following in the wake of the experiences matured in the previous The Serpent’s Egg, but shedding the poignant and majestic emphasis that characterizes Spleen and ideal (1985) and especially Within the realm of a dying sun (1987). And certainly leaving behind forever the new wave echoes present in the debut album.

Different geographical areas, but contextualized in precise epochs, form the musical base from which Dead Can Dance drew to compose Aion. There are many a cappella performances with a Gregorian taste, reinterpretations of folk songs, and two tracks explicitly modeled after ancient scores: Saltarello, a typical dance from Central Italy dating back to the 14th century; and The Song of Sybil, a liturgical song inspired by the Biblical Apocalypse, of Catalan origin.

Supporting this mood are tracks like Mephisto, The end of words, Wilderness, The garden of Zephyrus which are short gems of vocal rarefaction and counterpoint, set within the sacred fresco of Aion.

Almost standing out as an exception in its progression of sinister percussion is the track Black Sun. The only one that seems akin to previous works. Equipped with a stylistic structure closer to the song form and an evocative prophetic text, magically sung by Perry, Black Sun could almost be the compromise designed not to disappoint the aforementioned expectations.

It’s all sex and death as far as eyes can see

There’s sex and death in Mother Nature’s plans

The album cover does not betray the cultural and historical roots that inspired the work. It once again cuts out a portion of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, one of the most exploited paintings by both rock and classical musical iconography; yet without showing those allegorical excesses that made it the most famous triptych in art history. The detail is taken from the central part of the painting, namely the Earthly Realm: two nude figures (one female and one male) float enclosed in a silvery sphere, touching each other. As Brendan Perry himself explained, that image was for him a sort of evocation of union with Lisa projected back in time.

Aion, in Greek, means age or long period of time; in some cases, it also indicates eternity. The factor of time, crucial in human relationships and in the evolution of individuals, is sublimated in the musical atmospheres of a distant past. In fact, this perhaps remains the work of Dead Can Dance that delves the deepest into the hidden meaning of sounds and words that become feeling and emotional state. Conditions that certainly transcend time as such.