Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Frontier (demo)
2. Labour Of Love (radio)
3. Ocean (demo)
4. Orion (radio)
5. Threshold (radio)
6. Carnival Of Light (radio)
7. In Power We Entrust The Love Advocated
8. De Profundis (Out Of The Depths Of Sorrow)
9. Avatar
10. Enigma Of The Absolute
11. Summoning Of The Muse
12. Anywhere Out Of The World
13. Windfall
14. Cantara
15. In The Kingdom Of The Blind The One-Eyed Are Kings
16. Bird
17. The Protagonist

Disc 2:

1. Severance
2. The Host Of Seraphim
3. Song Of Sophia
4. The Arrival & The Reunion
5. Black Sun
6. The Promised Womb
7. Saltarello
8. The Song Of The Sibyl
9. Spirit
10. Yulunga
11. The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove
12. Sloth (radio)
13. Bylar
14. The Carnival Is Over
15. The Spider's Stratagem
16. The Wind That Shakes The Barley (radio)
17. How Fortunate The Man With None

Disc 3:

1. I Can See Now
2. American Dreaming
3. Tristan
4. Sanvean
5. Rakim
6. Gloridean
7. Don't Fade Away
8. Niereka
9. Song Of The Nile
10. Sambataki
11. Indus
12. The Snake & The Moon (edit)
13. The Lotus Eaters

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135166 in Music
• Released on: 2001-11-06
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Enhanced

Album Description
This is a 3x audio CD / 1x DVD box set. The DVD is Region 1 / NTSC.

Amazon.com
1981-1998 reveals why Dead Can Dance was such an influential group and why their music remains very much alive. From the opening notes of "Frontier," the first piece Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry improvised together, Dead Can Dance opened a doorway into worlds at once ancient and alien, frightening and glorious. 1981-1998 compiles the output of Dead Can Dance from their seven studio albums, live performances, and sundry collections. Through their many stylistic shifts, it reveals the music of ecstasy, a state of spiritual release that can be as serene as a Gregorian chant and as intense as a Persian dervish. But then, Dead Can Dance always had two sides. There were Perry's Jim Morrison-meets-Sinatra vocal croons, and there was the uncanny and passionate Gerrard, whose Middle Eastern, Bulgarian, and Gregorian singing styles created a transcultural dialect of the imagination. Perry surrounds Gerrard in a gothic architecture of synthesizers, strings, the Chinese hammered dulcimer called the yang ch'in (played by Gerrard), bouzoukis, and hurdy-gurdys. As ancient as its sources, Dead Can Dance is as modern as the end of time, which is where a lot of this music still sounds like it's headed. 1981-1998 follows the pair from their beginnings in Australia to their final studio album, the African-Indian derived Spiritchaser. Among the gems are their last song together, "The Lotus Eaters," recorded just before their final split, and a Gerrard composition called "Bylar." Performed here by Dead Can Dance, this rapturous piece was previously available only on The Echoes Living Room Concerts Volume 2, in a version by Gerrard. In concert, Dead Can Dance was almost a religious experience and that aspect is nearly captured on the final disc of this box in a DVD of their live concert film, Toward the Within. Also included are some videos. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews

What a Box Set ought to be
I love this set, and here's why:(1) The selection of tracks is excellent, and I know everyone, including myself, will have a favorite (or two) missing; however, there is great coverage of the studio albums, as well as a number of rarities/unreleased, the effect of which is to allow us to hear the evolution of a great artistic collaboration. Of course, as an introduction to the magic of DCD, this set is perfect, because newcomers will, as a matter of course, go buy the original releases!
(2) The packaging is beautiful,with an atmospheric selection of photographs, and an informative text that is mostly quotes from interviews with the major players.
(3)A 4th disc that is a DVD of a great concert performance, as well as a selection of miscellaneous videos. Is this a first for a popular music box set? I don't know, but it's a terrific idea, and the perfect excuse to order up that DVD player.
This set will become a cherished record of an exciting, unique period of music making by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard. Get it before it becomes a collectors' item!

The Lotus Eaters
I've been eagerly anticipating the release of this collection since its announcement months before. This set delivers on its promises and there is much on this box set for Dead Can Dance fans to salivate over. It comes in a thoughtfully designed sleeve, with the 4 discs included inside a hardbound book of landscape photographs and text information.

One of the notable items to be excited about is the inclusion of the DVD. This includes the concert performance TOWARD THE WITHIN (with interview footage), along with five promotional videos ("The Host of Seraphim", "Frontier", "The Protagonist", "Yulunga", and "The Carnival Is Over"). The videos are rich with imaginative direction and ideas (especially "Carnival"), such a far cry from the rubbish that passes as music videos these days. It's a shame DCD didn't produce more of these.

The audio CDs also offer new and exciting additions to the DCD cataloge. "Labor of Love" and "Threshold" find DCD (band mates Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard) closer to a conventional Rock band unit, complete w/ guitars and drum machine rhythms, and thus got tagged early in their career as "Gothic Rock". DCD surprised everyone when they made a stunning foray into exploring music from various cultures and time periods, thus producing diverse material from the Italian 14th century dance-step of "Salterello" to the percussive African rhythms of "Nierika".

The most valuable item on this set is the inclusion of the final track that Perry and Gerrard recorded together as DCD, called "The Lotus Eaters". This song was to be included on the band's follow-up to the SPIRITCHASER album, but the rest of the proposed album's music never materialized, leaving this bittersweet glimse of what musical directions DCD might have taken next. Gerrard weaves her stunning voice in and around the leisurely pace of the drums and Perry's guitar playing. The impact of the break-up of DCD is felt greatest on this song.

If you haven't discovered DCD's music yet then I suggest that you discover a band whose body of work is both ahead and out of our time.

My god, it's finally been done...
Oh how I have waited for this day. Waited, longed, prayed to anything that I thought (cared), crossed my fingers, dreamt, daydreamed, etc, etc, etc. I think you get the point.

Here it is folks. In all its glory. I find it to be an EXTREMELY difficult task compiling a "best of" DCD discography. I've always said, and I still maintain, that if you have to get only 3 DCD cd's, it should be "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun," "The Serpent's Egg," and "AION" respectively. In my humble opinion, it gets no finer than that period of DCD. "AION" is but the very threshold of the celtic/tribal sound that would later permeate DCD's sound. The previous two reflect the more neo-quasi-classical sound on which DCD developed its reputation. By all means, stay away from their first cd. It is, even by Brendan and Lisa's own admission, an utter travesty.

Anyway, on to this package. This is absolutely beautiful. I own everything ever done by DCD and any of the "side-project" outings. Thus, there was not a TON of stuff here that I didn't already have. But, sweet jesus, it has the very thing I have been lusting after for years and years: a DVD release of their live concert. This was previously only available on VHS and, confusingly, the short-lived Laser-disc. Having seen DCD on the SF leg of their tour, I so wanted to experience the beauty again. Now I can. In absolute technologically advanced splendor.

Get this, get this, get this, get this. I cannot stress this enough. If you are DCD fanatic such as myself, you probably already have it. If you're merely a completist, get it too. If you want to become acquainted with DCD, it's quite a good start. But I caution you, it will instill in you the desire to run out and purchase all you can by DCD. Which now, thanks to Ivo's sell out of 4AD, you can get quite easily. Does anyone remember when 4AD was independent and you had to pay outrageously high import costs to get this stuff on LP? Does anyone remember when "Lonely Is An Eyesore" was released and shown in "select" theatres?

Anyway, I digress. But as a close, if you are new to this whole genre, look into the 4AD label much further. PLEASE check out "bands" such as This Mortal Coil, The Cocteau Twins, Xymox, Dif Juz, any of Dominick Appleton's efforts, Wolfgang Press, (early-era) Lush, Pale Saints, etc. I could go on and on. Just dig a little. The road is endless. And maybe, just maybe, you'll realize that years and years before Projekt was even around, Ivo and the 4AD crew were creating beautiful, and far superior, music.

Enjoy kiddies. Also note that there has been a recent flood of re-issued/re-packaged/re-boxed multi-disc releases by such geniuses as Joy Division, and even a 4-cd Echo and The Bunnymen box set. Kudos to Warner Brothers and Rhino for such fine, excellently packaged material. Now I beg.....PLEASE, PLEASE, tell me such an effort is in the works for Nick Cave!