OF all the fab and whizzo bands who are now, or have once been, on the 4AD label The Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Lush, The Breeders and Belly it is the sentiment commonly known as surprise that greets the fact that the label's biggest sellers and strongest live draw is an Australian/Irish duo who record most of their work in Cavan and whose work has been sampled by Black Grape, used in a Perfume ad and interpreted by the San Francisco Ballet Company. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Dead Can Dance.
Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard have been doing the rounds of the fringes for a good 15 years, and over that time have released seven of the most compelling, if not downright fascinating, albums that have been committed to vinyl. If you're looking for a label, try. "world" but that trite marketing ploy doesn't do justice to a body of work that is so "out there" you won't find it marked on any traditional musical map.
They call it "time spanning and genre/geography defying" music (which is pretty cool) and by using all type of mad instruments they come up with startlingly original and pretty damn brilliant rhythms. When other bands start talking about their music being "spiritual", it's usually a wise idea to tell them to get a life and stop wanking around with ideas they have no notion of. But when Brendan Perry comes out with lines like "We were looking for the spirit, hunting it down and cornering it, we had the sense of searching for something which had meaning, something where you hear the spirits talking" when talking about the new album, you can only nod your head and agree. The thing about Dead Can Dance is this they have the music to back up such claims.
The new album, Spirit chaser, is worlds apart (ho, ho) from the previous, and very Gaelic sounding, Into The Labyrinth (1993) and is, if anything, more influenced by the sort of heats that are usually only found in the classier end of South American music.
The common theme of the album, according to Brendan Perry, is "a search for sounds which convey a sense of animism, to try and bring elements of nature through like bird song and things which suggest woods, snakes, water, atmospheres to look for alternatives rather than conventional uses of instrumentation, to express an animal nature rather than music that was coming from a technological background". Fair enough, but what about the whole "world music" tag thing?
"It's gone past the point of being this and that," says Lisa Gerrard. "Music has come to a new age, where we're exposed to music from all over the world and from a much larger palette of colours, as opposed to just what was available in the Fifties and Sixties." Speaking of availability, Spiritchaser doesn't hit the record shops until June 17th but there's something very special indeed coming up before that Dead Can Dance kick off their world tour at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin on Sunday night (8 p.m.). It's special because when they say "world" they really mean world (as in playing Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro) and also because in most of the countries they're playing they can usually pull in 8,000 a night. Remarkably enough, this is their first ever Dublin gig.
FURTHER and more Major dancerama vibe at The Point tomorrow night where a monstrously over talented and top heavy bill includes Liftfield, The Chemical Brothers, Fluke, David Holmes and our very own deCal ... If you haven't got the album Hawaii, it's your loss not theirs and the same applies about the gig in the Olympia this very night (late night) when the ineffably brilliant High Llamas take to the stage ... The rock'n'roll capital of Kilmeaden, Co Waterford plays host again to the annual Custom And Classic Bike Show (I went down one year and had a ball) and the music entertainment over the weekend comes courtesy of Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Something Happens and Mr C from the Shamen. Don't forget the raffle for the Harley Davidson and don't be going near the funfair if you've been on the cider take it from one who knows.
