Dead Can Dance
Dionysus
PIAS
Originally from Australia, Dead Can Dance are one of the bands that helped define the sound of the hugely-influential label 4AD to US audiences in the mid-late ’80s. Fueled by an aesthetic that collects sonic motifs from around the planet and weaves them into gloriously intertwined musical tapestries, Dead Can Dance has always been a band with a trajectory more than a sound. Influences from their entire career can be heard on Dionysus, and it’s difficult to say this is more of a “concept album” than any of their others, but there does seems to be a very directed effort to tell a tale here.
Dionysus is a little over a half-hour, and contains two tracks, whose titles are conveniently prefixed “ACT I” and “ACT II”. I’m being vague here because I don’t want to give much away. What I recommend is you listen to Dionysus a few times, in the background, and with headphones on in a dark room, before tracking down the libretto for this release and reading the tale that is told through this music and listening again. It’s not every album that can provide this experience.
