Dead Can Dance "Into the Labyrinth" Mobile Fidelity LP

$

28

 Dead Can Dance were an ethereal neoclassical world music duo formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981. Its mainstays were Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. The band relocated to London in May 1982 and disbanded in 1998, but reunited temporarily for a world tour in 2005. 

Music historian Ian McFarlane described Dead Can Dance as having an ambient style of world music that "constructed soundscapes of mesmerising grandeur and solemn beauty... with African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chants, Middle Eastern mantras and art-rock".

Dead Can Dance formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981 with Paul Erikson on bass guitar, Lisa Gerrard (ex-Microfilm) on vocals, Simon Monroe (Marching Girls) on drums and Brendan Perry (Marching Girls) on vocals and guitar.  Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry were also a domestic couple and they left Monroe in Australia when they and Paul Erikson moved to London in May 1982, where they signed with alternative rock label 4AD Records.  With the duo, the initial United Kingdom line-up were James Pinker, Paul Erikson and Peter Ulrich.

Their sixth studio album, Into the Labyrinth, was issued in September 1993 and dispensed with guest musicians entirely; it sold 500,000 copies worldwide and appeared on the Billboard 200.  The band had become 4AD's highest selling act.  

Into the Labyrinth was a marked change on many fronts from the previous album Aion of three years prior: Perry and Gerrard were now living far apart and writing music independently.  For the album, Gerrard travelled back to Perry's studio Quivvy Church (in Ireland) where they merged their songs and recorded the album over a period of three months together.

After the predominance of Perry's medieval influences on the two previous albums, this one puts Gerrard's ethnic music influences at the forefront.

This was the first album where Perry and Gerrard played all instruments, without guest musicians.  As a result, where Aion seemed to bear the weight of Gerrard and Perry's broken relationship, this one sounds more serene and spiritually uplifting.

The growing popularity of the CD format allowed for a longer album, 55 minutes instead of the previous 35 minutes on vinyl LPs. In the UK, the CD album was simultaneously released along a limited edition double vinyl LP (featuring "Bird" and "Spirit", the two 1991 bonus tracks from A Passage in Time).

While not a concept album, this link adds some conceptual cohesion to the album.
 
Track Information

1st track, "Yulunga (Spirit Dance)": in Gerrard's native Australia, yulunga means "dance" or "spirit dance",  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. 

2nd track, "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove": Perry described him as his alter ego, " the abstract relationship of myself and woman ". 

3rd track, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley": a late 18th-century traditional Irish ballad that Lisa Gerrard wanted to do 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 no more is established about that person. 

4th 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". The melody of the song is also very reminiscent of the final two tracks on Closer.

5th track, "Ariadne": the title refers to the Greek legend around Ariadne and the Labyrinth.

7th 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.

8th 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".

9th 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.

10th track, "Emmeleia": the title (in Greek ?µµ??e?a, 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 emmelia 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.

11th track, "How Fortunate the Man With None": for the lyrics, Brendan Perry picked 4 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.

Mobile Fidelity offers the best sounding copy of one of the best albums ever recorded.  It is a gem, a 'must have' for the audiophile or a casual listener. 

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL or MoFi) is a company known as an innovator in the production of audiophile-quality sound recordings. All releases are advertised as being produced from the first-generation analog master recordings, and using proprietary technology, which MFSL claims allows for improved sound quality. Each title is licensed from the original record company as a limited edition item. It is manufactured and sold only within a specific period of time.

From its beginning in 1977 MFSL gained a reputation for emphasizing quality at all points in the sound duplication and manufacturing process. At this time MFSL was very unusual in the record industry by offering a premium quality product at a premium price. Simultaneously, most large record labels were forced to lower costs and reduce quality standards. In 1977 most major labels were using relatively poor quality disc mastering and duplication methods and had begun pressing their product on thin and often recycled vinyl. These low cost methods led to an unnecessary increase in surface noise and other audio distortions.

The emphasis on quality at MFSL has been praised by critics and music fans. The success of MFSL proved that there was a significant market for premium product and encouraged others to emphasize quality also. Many other "audiophile" labels soon sprouted up to compete with MFSL, some of these begun by the major record labels themselves.

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