Dead Can Dance
Dionysus

Anno Domini 2018, here comes a new album by Dead Can Dance as a complete surprise, the inventors of the gothic-darkwave spiritual-mysteriophonic style, among the most baffling and innovative artists of the 80s and 90s. At least until they somewhat lost their touch, both of them, but especially her, the incomparable Lisa Gerrard, later creator of minor works. However, from the interviews released, it is understood that for this project, it was him, Brendan Perry, who was struck by the readings on ancient Greek mythology. Particularly the Dionysian myths, hence the album title, must have awakened in him an arcane compositional fervor that had lately been somewhat dimmed. Let's be clear: Ark (in his name) and Anastasis were not bad albums, on the contrary, but they had that certain something of... predictable, already heard, self-citation that ultimately rendered these works, especially the last one, small compendiums of their art, paradoxical best of of unheard but familiar tracks. Brendan, gripped by sacred fury, seems to have called Lisa begging her to participate in the new album, something she must have done willingly but, seemingly aware of her (new) secondary role, always remains a bit in the background, a bit subdued, a backing vocalist behind the scenes in a project of which she was once almost the absolute protagonist.

Here is a significant detail that makes this Dionysus strange, different, and original from its very structure: not an LP of songs but two long suite without interruption, symbolizing the first and second side of a vinyl. The record opens with "Sea Borne," with percussion that somewhat recalls Spiritchaser - the work indeed evokes the Middle Eastern-Indo-Haitian atmospheres of the last two "historic" albums - then rides on a melancholic and solemn oriental fanfare, soon counterpointed by Lisa's female choirs. The magical and hypnotic atmosphere is truly capable of recalling the mesmerism of their best times. Thus, the second "Liberator of Minds," more solid and stentorian but no less Middle Eastern, or the third "Dance of the Bacchantes," decidedly more sinister and unsettling like the terrible dance it aims to evoke, yet infused with oriental spices and Berber cries, are tracks that open new spaces in the mind, made of exotic journeys in the world, for sure, but also in the soul. Thus, the first suite, or first act, as they call it, closes.

The second act, slightly longer and composed of 4 tracks, is the one presenting compositions more similar to songs. I say similar because not only are the structures rather irregular, but the singing is untranslatable as it is composed in glossolalia, the non-existent language (or invented on the spot) of which Lisa was a master. The suite begins meditatively with the suggestive bagpipes of "The Mountain," before the percussion, this time cold as the most forbidding north, takes over. The track is the first "song" we encounter, sung by Brendan with a simple accompaniment like a mandolin and Lisa as a simple backing singer. It follows a flock of sheep instilling a pastoral landscape of the mind, and finally a vocal solo by Lisa - a unique case on the album - painting "The Invocation," a track endowed with chimes of an orient rarely so interior. Persian and Arab landscapes intertwine fading into the following "The Forest" and its synthetic chirps. The voice that emerges is Brendan's, but now they no longer use the English language, indeed they evoke here a sort of Haitian patois that they had already showcased on Spiritchaser. A relatively cheerful track, fading into "Psychopomp," literally "transporter of souls," a title once reserved for Hermes/Mercury, closing the record. Night noises, distant and slightly unsettling chirps are then punctuated by precise percussion, supporting Brendan's evocative voice, consistently counterpointed by Lisa in a lullaby with no place or time. And time itself seems to stop in the monotonous harmonic continuity of the track.

No longer as innovative and surprising as in their golden years, at least with this work, Dead Can Dance shows they are still capable of expressing creative flashes, slightly overcoming that monument to themselves that they seemed to have become since their 2005 reunion. Certainly, their research hasn't evolved much from Into the Labyrinth and Spiritchaser, but here it is contextualized in a stream of consciousness of the soul adrift that indeed suits it well. To be listened to while flying or with closed eyes.