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Rating: First of all, I must apologize to dear AXL if I am re-evaluating an album that he has already reviewed, masterfully; perhaps this review is useless, but I have long been overwhelmed by the indescribable desire to partly communicate the emotion that overwhelmed me when listening to this magnificence; in fact, I take this opportunity to thank him with all my heart and, like him, to thank the other reviewers who introduced me to the warm and unreal atmospheres of Dead Can Dance, a group that has now become my obsession.
In fact, for a long time I had heard this name and the highest praises inevitably associated with their works; I also heard about their concert, which I unfortunately couldn't attend. So, intrigued, I went to search for information about their group; that's how I found DeBaser. I first read about this album; the splendid cover immediately attracted me.
"... Really, on very few other occasions have I perceived in such a disarming manner what it means to be captivated by sound, or rather to consciously let oneself be transported by it to other solar systems where everything seems to flow with a paradisiacal harmony, and above all no - I mean no - note feels unnecessary or superfluous..."
Damn, I must get this, I thought, I really must get it. So it was the next day that I went to Ricordi: "Do you have Dead Can Dance?" I asked the expert on duty. "Well, I think there were a couple of CDs."
Luckily, I found the desired album. I admired those two bells surrounded by a haunting polar landscape on the cover once more. I hurried back home; I locked myself in my room, closed the curtains and shutters, and the door - locked - then lay on the bed staring at something in the void of darkness, while the disc began to spin gently. It was pitch black. However, I noticed that my little room was slowly being illuminated by numerous and powerful lights, while its walls and ceiling receded, thus creating a large and beautiful hall in which a strong applause rose from all the spectators who had magically gathered around me; I too clapped. I then realized it was a theater, and every light, every shape, every emotion present in that theater was impatiently waiting for the imminent arrival of something, or someone. I pondered this, and as I asked myself which myth, which celebrity, which god could ever have caused such an overwhelming anticipation, the lights became a bit dimmer. Only the stage was illuminated by a gentle luminous burst in which two figures emerged from nothing: one, stocky and robust, the other, ethereal and slender, wrapped in a long white dress. The applause suddenly ceased and the music began. And they started to sing.
Suddenly, distant epochs, faraway places, unreal atmospheres penetrated my mind. And the lights, so many lights, all different in color and all beautiful; I was immersed in a deep and sweet torpor in which all five senses reached their maximum peak of pleasure, exploring in amazement every kind of shape and dimension; all my rational conception and my stupid security were suddenly completely thrown off to launch me into a deep and imaginative harmony from which, eventually, anguished and happy, I arrived running in the middle of an endless cave with malleable and sweet walls that moved continuously in wavy and curving movements, on which countless and imaginative geometries of purplish and dark blue colors were swiftly projected.
And as I experienced fresh and acute pleasure in watching from afar the beautiful Lisa Gerrard while, undaunted, she entered into abstract and shrewd vocal fantasies and in worlds uncontaminated and too deep for human mediocrity, I also felt a warm nostalgia when Brendan Perry inexplicably recalled melancholy childhood memories...
Finally, the magic concluded, and I realized I had returned to my home, in my narrow and dark room. I was exhausted, who knows why: perhaps that work had come so close to Perfection that it reached the ability to seize not only the soul and essence of Life, but also the body, the reality of Life? Maybe.
Certainly, I was coming down from a sweet and wonderful adventure thanks to which perhaps some change had occurred in me, somewhere, there, near the most remote and obscure recesses of my psyche; still incredibly amazed, I then wondered what the secret of their music might have been, the special ingredient of their magical recipes. The answer? Love, certainly: that pure and platonic love, that bond that existed between Lisa and Brendan, a love so strong and so intense that it eventually turned into music.
The works of Dead Can Dance are therefore indisputably the earthly and tangible proof of their deep union and their understanding in the name of Music.
Poetic, isn't it?
"My voice is my instrument... I don't believe there are words to describe what I do... I create sounds." (Lisa Gerrard)
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Rakim (06:25)
Favored son
Turn in the garden
Shades of one
Sins forgotten
Favored signs to find hope
In the rounds of life
Favored rhymes to find hope
In the sands of life
Favored son
Fence in your heart
Savored son
Sins forgotten
06 The Wind That Shakes the Barley (03:12)
I sat within the valley green
I sat me with my true love.
My sad heart strove the two between
The old love and the new love.
The old for her the new
That made me think on Ireland dearly.
While the soft wind blew down the glade
and shook the golden barley.
T'was hard the woeful words to frame
To break the ties that bound us.
But harder still to bear the shame
of foreign chains around us.
And so I said the mountain glen
I'll meet at morning early.
And I'll join the bold united men
While soft winds shook the barley.
T'was sad I kissed away her tears
My fond arm round her flinging.
When a foe, man's shot burst on our ears
From out the wild woods ringing.
A bullet pierced my true love's side
In life's young spring so early.
And on my breast in blood she died
While soft winds shook the barley.
But blood for blood without remorse
I've ta'en at oulart hollow.
I've lain my true love's clay like corpse
Where I full soon must follow.
Around her grave I've wandered drear
Noon, night, and morning early.
With breaking heart when e'er I hear
The wind that shakes the barley.
09 American Dreaming (04:55)
I need my conscience to keep watch over me
To protect me from myself
So I can wear honesty like a crown on my head
When I walk into the promised land
We've been too long American dreaming
And I think we've all lost the way
Forlorn somnambulistic maniacal in the dark
I'm in love with an American girl
Though she's my best friend
I love her surreptitious smile
That hides the pain within her
And we'll go dancing in the rings of laughter
And live along by the shores
???
Yeah-ee, on the lea the rising wind blows
Fay-hee, on the lea the rising wind blows
How long how long?
??? in the grounds of allegiances we've left behind
Turned back by the foot of the doorway
Never lost and found
We've been too long American dreaming
I think we've all lost the heart
??? somnambulistic maniacal in the dark
Yeah-ee, on the lea the rising wind blows
Fay-hee, on the lea the rising wind blows
How long how long?
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By RealAXL
Not a single note—none at all—seems useless or superfluous.
Sanvean... in this live version constitutes a real flash abduction of all five senses: a few tears could surprise even the toughest.
