Into the Labyrinth [Bonus Tracks] [PA]

Performer: Dead Can Dance
Engineer: Brendan Perry
Producer: Brendan Perry
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Dead Can Dance: Lisa Gerrardo, Brendan Perry. INTO THE LABYRINTH is either the sixth or seventh Dead Can Dance album, depending upon whether you could the live one or not. It also marks a step back from that live album--there are no flirtations with traditional pop song structures as in tracks like "American Dreaming" and "Don't Fade Away." Instead, DCD has further widened its palate to include more tribal and spiritual pieces (see "Saldek" and "Toward the Within"). The album also contains covers of two relatively recent songs (considering that the band usually favors the 14th and 16th centuries), "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," an Irish protest song written in the mid-1800s and "How Fortunate the Man With None," which was adapted from a piece by 20th-century playwright Bertold Brecht. Standouts from this collection include Lisa Gerrard's majestic vocal turn on "Yulunga (Spirit Dance)," the lush music of "Tell Me About the Forest (You Called Home)," and "The Spider's Stratagem," an oddly lullaby-like track featuring bongos and Lisa Gerrard's voice at its most soothing. INTO THE LABYRINTH is a much more sedate record than Dead Can Dance's previous ones; a record perfectly suited to long, dark afternoons.

Entertainment Weekly (10/15/93, p.76) - "...[Dead Can Dance] return with atmospheric, gothic tracks positively untethered to this earth..." - Rating: A- Q (11/93, p.116) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Dead Can Dance have patched together a bright, homemade musical quilt that defies the world to call it pretentious....yet for all its strangeness, [INTO THE LABYRINTH] is surprisingly functional..." Melody Maker (9/18/93, p.40) - "...Lisa Gerrard's voice is breathtaking.... Dead Can Dance are more in tune with the spirit of the times than they've ever been before..." NME (Magazine) (9/11/93, p.37) - "...INTO THE LABYRINTH is an ambitious, astoundingly serious double-album, fusing global folk-music with a more focused, gloomy English pop...Dead Can Dance are, ultimately masters of their own sound..."

Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard formed Dead Can Dance in the early 1980s in Australia, moving to London before the release of their self-titled debut in '84. Their unique sound bore a dark, gothic feel, but was far more idiosyncratic than that of the goth-rock hordes. Over the years they incorporated Early Music, electronics, Celtic flavors, and various World Music touches, all held together by the pair's trademark vocal blend. Dead Can Dance split up on a high note following their 1996 album SPIRITCHASER, with Perry and Gerrard both going on to solo work, and the latter singing on numerous film soundtracks.

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