Dead Can Dance Dionysus

1980s band Dead Can Dance have announced a new album. The band, a staple of the influential 80s 4AD label, have always been difficult to categorise, over the course of their history having combined elements of world music, neo-classical orchestration, gaelic folk and ethereal ambient sounds, always centred around the unique and often stunning vocals of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. Dionysus is their 9th album and will arive in November

ACT I

Sea Borne - Liberator of Minds - Dance of the Bacchantes

ACT II

The Mountain - The Invocation - The Forest - Psychopomp

DEAD CAN DANCE – DIONYSUS tracklist & notes:

ACT I – Sea Borne announces Dionysus’ arrival from the east by ship. This movement is crucial to understanding Dionysus as an outsider god – ‘the god that comes’ – central to Ancient Greek city religions that affiliate him with the protection of those who do not belong to conventional society, and anything which escapes human reason.

ACT I – Liberator of Minds, with Dionysus being known as ‘he who lends men’s minds wings’, the album’s second movement conveys the use of hallucinogens and mind-expanding drugs that are associated with him as well as breaking free from the constraints of social norms within society.

ACT I – Dance of the Bacchantes, invokes the rite that Dionysus’ female followers took part in, abandoning their domestic duties for trance-like processions and dances.

ACT II – The Mountain, the first movement of the album’s second Act, the listener will find themselves visiting Mount Nysa. This mountain was Dionysus’ place of birth, where he was raised by the centaur Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances together with Bacchic rites and initiations.

ACT II – The Invocation represents the chorus who summon the god to participate in the harvest ceremony which also refers to his pre-eminence in the creation and birth of Greek theatre and tragedy.

ACT II – The Forest, the call to abandon worldly and material pursuits and return to a primeval enlightened state of being as in the Hindu tradition of Vanaprastha “departure to the forest” which is seen as the final stage in human spiritual development.

ACT II – Psychopomp, the final movement sees Dionysus in his role as a guide to the afterlife, where he escorted dead souls to Hades.

Across the two years in which he made Dionysus, Perry gathered together a world-spanning array of percussion including the Daf (Iranian frame drum) and the Fujara (Slovakian shepherds flute). Perry blends all of the album’s elements together using field recordings and chanting, including a goatherd in Switzerland, beehive’s from New Zealand, and bird calls from Mexico and Brazil.

Lisa Gerrard will sing on no less than 4 of the 7 movements.

[... ] After many listens though of the roughly 36 minute album, I (personally) felt like this was more of an EP rather than any full length effort and unfortunately, on top of that, Lisa Gerrard only sings on two movements on the album (‘The Mountain’ and ‘Psychopomp’) leaving me missing more of her influences in the works. Her ethereal vocals are synonymous and unmistakably what has resonated most with fans and is unfortunately significantly diminished on this album. In the light of this, I would have appreciated the album perhaps a bit more if this were released as a Brendan Perry solo album with Lisa Gerrard making a guest appearance on it. One thing that did not work for me was a lot of the atmospheric sounds interspersed throughout the album and in between movements.

[...] Despite those three minor points, the album still very much holds true to what Brendan Perry originally envisioned for Dead Can Dance. It is highly textured with a vast array of vocalizations, instrumentation and keeps to the theme of Dionysus and his cult throughout it.

Highlights of the album are Act II’s ‘The Invocation’ with ‘The Mountain’ coming in a close second. As compared to Dead Can Dance’s other works, it might best match the feel and sound of Spiritchaser, but I feel that for as good as it is, it unfortunately falls a bit short, especially if compared against 2012’s Anastasis album which had the best blend of their individual styles overall. [...]