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kind of a primer for anyone who's never heard DCD:
Concert Review: Dead Can Dance
By Nick Kelly
DUBLIN (Billboard) - There has rarely been a more mysterious and enigmatic presence on the music scene than Dead Can Dance.
The hermetic duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry happily ignored the passing trends of the day, instead finding inspiration from a rich variety of sources that scanned the globe and reached back through centuries.
The result was a vivid and restless body of work that, while never of its time, still has a timeless feel to it. Solemn liturgical chants, medieval dance music, mystical Eastern melodies, driving African rhythms, Irish sean nos and introspective folk-rock: It's all here.
In lesser hands, such promiscuous genre-hopping might have resulted in wishy-washy New Age noodling. But with Dead Can Dance there has always been soul beneath the style.
After nearly a decade apart, the pair has re-formed. In the intervening years, each released solo albums and engaged in other collaborations, while Gerrard has been much in demand scoring films.
This sellout show in Dublin's Olympia Theatre was the opening night of a European tour, and there was a palpable sense of expectation at seeing Perry and Gerrard perform together for the first time this millennium.
A rapturous reception greeted the band as Gerrard glided across the stage to take up her position behind her beloved yang chin (an ancient Chinese dulcimer). The combination of her stately yellow kimono and her plaited hair made one think of Princess Leia.
And, indeed, when Gerrard sings, her voice has such a haunting, otherworldly quality to it, it's as if she has arrived from some distant galaxy. Certainly, the English language is deemed an inadequate medium for self-expression. Instead, Gerrard sings in what sometimes sound like exotic foreign tongues but which are mostly self-generated sounds that seem to spring from a primal, pre-verbal source.
Accompanied by a small army of percussionists and multi-instrumentalists, the dramatic "Nierika" from the "Spiritchaser" album opened the set, with the shuffling maracas and congas working up a lively groove.
INNOVATIVE INSTRUMENTATION
Throughout the show, there was a breathless amount of instrument changes among tambourines, bodhrans, cymbals, bells, computers, keyboards, guitars and dulcimer. Perry even brandished a hurdy-gurdy for "Salterello" (which he termed "medieval rock 'n' roll") and the majestic "Severance."
There was even room for some Bertolt Brecht. Perry's austere reading of the cautionary tale "How Fortunate the Man With None" was brooding and doomy but always compelling.
The duo scattered new songs through the set. Perry, now shaven-headed and sporting a goatee, sounded desolate and heartbroken when he sang, "Never let it be said I was untrue / I never found a home inside of you."
Other highlights included the atmospheric "Dreams Made Flesh" (one of the duo's contributions to This Mortal Coil's seminal debut album) as well as Gerrard's note-perfect a cappella rendition of the old Irish rebel song "The Wind That Shakes the Barley."
Perry later switched into troubadour mode, strapping on a 12-string acoustic guitar for "I Can See Now" and "American Dreaming." But special mention must go to the operatic "Sanvean," where the power and drama of Gerrard's voice reached new peaks of shamanic majesty.
The encore offered another new song, the bluesy "Hymn for the Fallen," from Gerrard's forthcoming solo album, "Mantras of a Lost Archetype." The track found her singing an intense and moving narrative in English, to the accompaniment of just piano and E-bowed guitar.
If you closed your eyes, you could believe you were listening to Billie Holiday or Nina Simone, and it made one yearn to hear a conventional covers album by Gerrard. It was a memorable evening -- and if the line to buy an official recording of the gig afterward was anything to go by, much of the crowd agreed.
Reuters/Billboard
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