Dead Can Dance
Toward the Within

THE REVIEW

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)