Dead Can Dance - Into The Labyrinth (1993) {mp3-vbr} [rykker]

Year Released: 1993
Running Time: 55:26

TRACKLIST

1) "Yulunga (Spirit Dance)" – 6:56
2) "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove" – 6:17
3) "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" – 2:49
4) "The Carnival Is Over" – 5:28
5) "Ariadne" – 1:54
6) "Saldek" – 1:07
7) "Towards the Within" – 7:06
8) "Tell Me About the Forest (You Once Called Home)" – 5:42
9) "The Spider's Stratagem" – 6:42
10) "Emmeleia" – 2:04
11) "How Fortunate the Man With None" – 9:15

Track information [via Wikipedia]
About the first track, "Yulunga (Spirit Dance)": in Gerrard's native Australia, yulunga means "dance" or "spirit dance", apparently related to the verb yulugi (to dance, to play) in the Gamilaraay language of the Aboriginal Kamilaroi (Indigenous Australians). In an Aboriginal dreamtime legend, Yulunga is a variant of Julunggul, the Aboriginal mythological Rainbow Serpent goddess. (There is also a Yulunga Street and a Yulunga Festival in South Australia.)

About the second track, "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove": Perry described him as his alter ego, "the abstract relationship of myself and woman". This song was played during the strip club scene in the 1995 Sean Penn film The Crossing Guard. It is also the title of a 1965 Secret Agent episode.

About the third track, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley": a late 18th-century traditional Irish ballad that Lisa Gerrard wanted to record her own version of, "it was meant to be a rallying song, but it has such an intense sadness that it becomes an anti-war song." The liner notes inscribed it as "dedicated to the memory of Maureen Copper," but nothing else is established about that person. The recording was sampled by hip hop producer 4th Disciple on Killarmy’s song "Blood for Blood", which appears on the album Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.

About the fourth track, "The Carnival Is Over": described as a reminiscence of pre-teen Perry living in East London, visiting the circus. It also features a borrowed lyric from Joy Division's "The Eternal" in the form of "(The) Procession moves on, the shouting is over".

About the fifth track, "Ariadne": the title refers to the Greek legend of Ariadne and the Labyrinth.

About the seventh track, "Towards the Within": the title refers obliquely to the Labyrinth, because Theseus had to journey towards the within to reach the Minotaur at the center.

About the eighth track, "Tell Me About the Forest": Perry explained, "When you live in Ireland you see the people who have been away for years returning to their parents, and you also see those they leave behind... the breaking down of tradition along with the uprooting and upheaval of tribes. In Ireland, and in the rain forests. If we could only keep the oral traditions going, and leave the clerical bull behind... ". Like the 4th track, this song also borrows a Joy Division lyric – the line "And we're changing our ways, (Yes we are) Taking (on) different roads" from "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

About the ninth track, "The Spider's Stratagem": the title refers obliquely to the Labyrinth, via the 1970 Bertolucci film The Spider's Stratagem (La strategia del ragno) adapting a short story by master of the Labyrinth Jorge Luis Borges, "Theme of the Traitor and Hero" published in English in Labyrinths.

About the 10th track, "Emmeleia": the title (in Greek ἐμμέλεια, meaning "gracefulness" or "harmonization") was the name of the grave and dignified dance of tragedy in the theatre of ancient Greece (each dramatic genre featured its own chorus dance, being the emmeleia or emmelīa in tragedy, the kordax or cordax in comedy, and the sikinnis or sicinnis in satyr-play). The "lyrics" derive from Lisa Gerrard's usual glossolalia, but because she had to write down a phonetic version for Brendan Perry to sing along with her, this song sounds much more like a structured language. Written transcriptions exist but no language could be recognized.

About the 11th track, "How Fortunate the Man With None": for the lyrics, Brendan Perry picked four stanzas from Bertolt Brecht's 1928 poem "Die Ballade von den Prominenten", in the English translation by John Willett (Brecht used a similar version of this poem as "Die Schädlichkeit von Tugenden" in his 1939 play Mother Courage and Her Children, and a slightly different version as "Salomon-Song" in his 1928 Threepenny Opera, act III, number 18). Perry then set them to music for a Temenos Academy production of the play. It was only the second time such permission was granted by the Brecht estate, the previous one being in 1963.

With a regular American deal in place for the first time ever, thanks to 4AD's linkup with the WEA conglomerate, Dead Can Dance made a splash on commercial alternative radio with "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove," the first single from Into the Labyrinth. Raga drones, a strange clattering beat, a haunting wind instrument, orchestral shading, and Perry's ever-grand voice make it one of the more unlikely things to be heard on the airwaves in a while. It all begins with yet another jaw-dropper from Gerrard, "Yulunga (Spirit Dance)," with keyboards and her octave-defying voice at such a deep, rich level that it sweeps all before it. Wordless as always but never without emotional heft, the song slowly slides into a slow but heavy percussion piece that sounds a bit like "Bird" from A Passage in Time, but with greater impact and memorability. As the album slowly unwinds over an hour's length, the two again create a series of often astounding numbers that sound like they should be millennia old, mixing and matching styles to create new fusions. Perhaps even more impressive is that everything was performed solely by Perry and Gerrard -- no outside guests here, and yet everything is as detailed, lush, and multifaceted as many of their past albums. New classics from the band appear almost track for track: Gerrard's a cappella work on "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," the gentle beauty of "Ariadne," the rhythmic drive and chants of the title song. The conclusion is a slightly surprising but quite successful cover -- "How Fortunate the Man With None," an adaptation of a classic Bertolt Brecht tune about the turn of fortune's wheel. Given a restrained arrangement and Perry's singing, it brings Labyrinth to a satisfying end.



Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Mode : Joint stereo
Duration : 6mn 17s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 252 Kbps
Minimum bit rate : 32.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 11.3 MiB (100%)
Writing library : LAME3.99r
Encoding settings : -m j -V 0 -q 0 -lowpass 22.1 --vbr-new -b 32