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EDIT INFODead Can Dance - Wake
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Album Details
- Artist: Dead Can Dance
- Album: Wake
- Label: 4AD
- Year of Release: 2003
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-10-06
RecommendWhile I'm not the biggest Dead Can Dance fan, I still always appreciated what they did. And what better way to get their music into your collection (assuming that you are like me) than to slide in a 2 disc compilation of their career spanning best music. Now, I'm sure if you have been following along the Dead Can Dance musical trail you will already have most of their albums, or you may have ventured out and got their box set that came out a year or so ago. So what is the point of a compilation such as Wake? Box sets are for hardcore fans and compilations such as this one are for the people that haven't really gotten into a band but would like the abbreviated notes on the best songs of their career. That's exactly what you get with this package, Dead Can Dance's best songs. For occasional listens (like I will be prone to do), Wake is perfect. Hand picked songs that are fans favorites and Brendan and Lisa's favorites. Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard made some of the most beautiful music to ever be recorded. They shared the vocal duties and Brendan was the one to create the ever expansive soundscapes that backed them up. One reason people were buying the box set was for a track called "The Lotus Eaters", only available there. But they have released it and it is now available on this double disc. It is worth the price of admission for DCD fans. There are 26 songs to keep you going here.
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on 2012-03-24 CharlesMartel Said:
This two CD compilation of Dead Can Dance material is perhaps the best introduction to the band and it makes you wonder why it took so long coming to market, especially in the US where its release was delayed nearly a decade. However, as an example of what lay behind whatever Dead Can Dance did, this offers some interesting insights. It also may perhaps offer some explanation of how and why Dead Can Dance were to move into the production of film soundtracks later in their career.
Now Dead Can Dance, like most darkwave, is not for everybody. You definitely have to be in the mood to listen to this and I would recommend that people of a depressive disposition do not do so. The tracks are dark and sombre yet full of the atmospheric sounds with which you associate the genre. At times, the essential coldness of the music is taken to an excessive degree. Yet the influences on Dead Can Dance are varied. Moody ambient music combines with syncopated West African rhythms and Gaelic folk to produce something which has the capacity to awe the listener.
Yet there are, almost inevitably, problems. The production is too sparse to convey the essential depth of the sound and the reliance on synthesisers to produce virtually every sound the band makes often renders the music antiseptic. And to cap it all, some of the tracks are, frankly, pretty boring. There are times when I am able to switch off almost completely, something which I feel sure was not among the original intentions of Gerrard and Perry.
The best features of the album are the vocals. Brendan Perry has a rich deep baritone which is nonetheless capable of soaring. Lisa Gerrard sings as if she desires to fill the room with sound, whatever the size of the room. The former comes out best on the almost medieval tracks such as "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun" , while the Gerrard's best displays are on tracks like " Host of the Seraphim " which have a spiritual, if not religious feel about them.
Tracks on the album are arranged in chronological order which is probably just as well because if the tracks were mixed up you would not get the feel for the band's development and would undoubtedly get confused and bewildered by the differing styles and themes. And yet, I have to say the album is too long. Listening to the entire 26 tracks is exhausting as well as depressing. There is too much to take in and eventually it wears you out. As a consequence, I never listen to it in full these days and dip into it occasionally when the mood suits me.
Rating: 6/10
