Music CD - Dead Can Dance: Into the Labyrinth

	Music CD: Into the Labyrinth Artist: Dead Can Dance List Price: $17.99 Our Price: $37.96 Your Save: $ ( % ) Availability: Manufacturer: Wea International
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Tracks: 1. Yulunga (Spirit Dance) 2. The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove 3. The Wind That Shakes The Barley 4. The Carnival Is Over 5. Ariadne 6. Saldek 7. Towards The Within 8. Tell Me About The Forest (You Once Called Home) 9. The Spider's Stratagem 10. Emmeleia 11. How Fortunate The Man With None
Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0093624538424 Format: Import Label: Wea International Manufacturer: Wea International Number Of Discs: 1 Publication Date: 1993 Publisher: Wea International Release Date: 1993-09-14 Studio: Wea International
Related Items Spiritchaser Within the Realm of a Dying Sun Serpent's Egg Toward the Within Aion
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Not my favorite DCD Comment: This album is less compelling for me than some of their others. The tracks are mostly spacey vocals, and I miss the duo's fine instrumentals. Customer Rating: Summary: Jim Morrison never died...... Comment: he just went underground for years and resurfaced with this group. The male lead in this band sounds strikingly like(i might say EXACTLY like) the Lizard King himself---eerie. I even think that Morrison himself might have morphed into performing this kinda stuff given time(he was always a poet). Anyway, not a bad cd overall--I was introduced to DCD by a friend from work and I have to say he didn't lead me wrong. Very atmospheric music. Customer Rating: Summary: Into the Labyrinth Comment: I'm relatively new to Dead Can Dance's music. I have heard only a couple of their albums. I can't really say I became a massive DCD fan but I certainly have enjoyed their music from what little I have heard. I recently found a copy of INTO THE LABYRINTH at my library and decided to check it out. I am very glad that I did get the cd. I felt like I was in another world whenever I listen to the cd. The Middle Eastern influences certainly gives the music an international flair. The production is immaculate. I can hear every single word that comes floating out of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry's voices. There is also a live vibe. I almost feel as if I am in the recording studio watching the duo sing. While I do enjoy Brendan Perry's vocals, I have to admit I like Lisa's vocals a bit more. Her vocalizations often reminds me of one of my all time favorite sings, Loreena McKennitt. I liked most of INTO THE LABYRINTH. The only track I wasn't too keen on was "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove". I didn't particularly care for the melody or Brendan's vocals. Overall, INTO THE LABYRINTH is a lush soundscape of Middle Eastern melodies suitable for listening after a long day at the office. Customer Rating: Summary: 5 stars! Comment: This is a great CD...go get it if you are into Dead Can Dance! This is their greatest album. Customer Rating: Summary: Their commercial breakthrough, but not their best Comment: After an absence of three years which saw the release of a best of collection, Dead Can Dance achieved their commercial and U.S. breakthrough as well as yet another stylistic shift with this, their sixth studio album. Unlike previous albums which featured backing musicians, this one saw the DCD duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard handling all the instruments and vocals themselves in their new private studio. While this mostly works, occasionally the synthesizers sound a bit thin and one wishes they had employed musicians playing actual instruments for certain passages. Stylistically, DCD moved on from the medieval arrangements of their previous album, Aion, towards more middle eastern influences alternating with dreamy pop sounds. This album also marks an increasing estrangement of the duo's individual musical styles. Lisa's dramatic opener, Yulunga, sets the tone with her chilling multi-octave wordless singing over building percussion, followed by what was to become one of the unlikelier alternative radio hits, Brendan's The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove, a bitter rebuke to an unfaithful lover delivered over a crisp background of tablas and period bagpipes. Lisa then startles longtime fans by delivering the next track, the Wind That Shakes the Barley, an actual traditional song with lyrics (as opposed to her usual wordless glossolalia). Brendan's song of dreamy nostalgia, The Carnival Is Over, was another minor hit thanks to its being featured as the theme of MTV's Real World, and is as close as the group had come so far to mainstream pop. Less successful is his third original song on the album, Tell Me About The Forest, which lyrically strays into preachiness and musically provides little interest. His closing piece on the album is an arrangement of Berthold Brecht's How Fortunate The Man Who Has None, which achieves a kind of gloomy dignity musically but strains to sustain interest throughout its full nine minute length. The rest of the album is heavier on middle eastern and eastern European influences. Lisa's Ariadne is a brief but lovely piece featuring multitracked vocals over organ, while her even briefer Saldek sounds like it came straight from a National Geographic special on traditional Bulgarian music. The title track is a meandering and ultimately not very interesting set of passages of middle eastern styled singing and drumming with synthesizer; the similar Spider's Strategem features the same musical elements but actually comes together as a more interesting and compelling whole. The medieval a capella choral piece Emmeleia sounds like an outtake from Aion. This album marked a watershed in several ways for the group, and for many fans was their initial introduction to DCD and hence defined their sense of the duo's musical identity, but I can't give it more than three stars. Though it features some terrific songs, much of it sounds like filler, and the stripped production pales in comparison to their best earlier work. To get a sense of what this duo is really capable of, find a copy of Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, Spleen and Ideal, The Serpent's Egg, or Aion. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: Their goth-sounding name and dour visual image aside, the prolific duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard produce wildly eclectic but utterly unique music. Their painstakingly crafted albums encompass numerous arcane genres, from European classical music to ancient Celtic and Middle Eastern folk styles, often employing authentic antique instruments to achieve their ambitious, emotive soundscapes. The 1993 effort Into the Labyrinth found Dead Can Dance mixing their medieval leanings with more exotic Eastern influences on "Saldek" and "Yulunga," while exploring Celtic balladry on the traditional "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" and theatrical songcraft in their interpretation of Bertolt Brecht's "How Fortunate Is the Man with None." --Scott Schinder