Dead Can Dance Album: “Passage in Time”

Chances are, you don't have anything else like this in your cd collection. I've been listening for 13 years and still have no real comparisons. Only the "Cocteau Twins" or a darker "Enya" come to mind...but not really. Though some of their stuff has kind of a tribal sound to it, most of this collection is more gothic, more medieval. I always envision this music coming out of some cathedral, in a far away and mysterious place, hundreds of years ago. That's what's so wonderful about "Dead Can Dance". They can transport you to places other music cannot. I also enjoy both the male, and female vocals, on the tracks that have them. I honestly think that someone would enjoy most of their albums equally, but this does give you a taste of many of them. This is a good place to expand your knowledge of music through time.

This is a sampler drawn from other albums as follows: from Spleen and Ideal (1985) comes the Enigma of the Absolute; from Within the Realm of a Dying Song (1987) comes Cantara and Anywhere Out of the World; from The Serpent's Egg (1994) come Song of Sophia, Ullyses, The Host of Seraphim, The Writing on my Fathers Hand, Severance and In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-eyes are Kings; from Aion (1990) come Saltarello, The Garden of Zepharus, Wilderness, The Song of the Sybil, and Fortune Presents Gifts not According to the Book; only Bird and Spirit are recorded specifically for this album.

I would not have made the same choices of cuts from the album. However, in this selection, I found myself paying closer attention to the lyrics which for Enigma of the Absolute are excellent. The selection leans towards the more electronic and less traditional, Medieval sounds. This includes the Middle Eastern flavor being less pronounced. Nonetheless, the album is a good introduction although I, personally, would recommend Aion to my friends first.

...not that any of these were hits in any sense of the term, though. I picked up this disc (cassette at the time) some ten years ago simply based on the cover art, never having heard of them. I was blown away and still am. This is my favorite DCD...utterly original and haunting. It makes you believe music is somehow magical. I've since bought all of their music, but this disc would remain my desert island favorite.

Sometimes we listen to a new release and love it right away--yet a month later it languishes on the shelf. Other releases--a good example in my case some of Richard Thompson's stuff--take repeated listenings before their craftsmanship emerges. It's a rare release indeed that we love upon first listen and never tire of listening to again and again, months or years down the road. This CD's one of the rare ones.

Granted, I love ALL of DCD's catalog, even their--to my ears--unpolished first release. DCD remains peerless in their ability to evoke by turns dark Celtic melancholy, ancient Sufi devotion, and medieval longings of the spirit. As ably shown in this CD, their music is an eclectic sampling across cultures and ages that resonates deeply with anyone knowing what it means to be human.

My daughter brought the CD on a recent road trip, hoping I would like it as much as she does. While this disk isn't one I would be likely to choose for driving tunes, when I got it home and could listen to it more carefully, I discovered a rich sound full of movement and color for the imagination.

The mixture of music types flows from culture to culture, touching on legends and myths allowing us to sample places and times we may otherwise miss. As soon as I return her CD, I will be making a purchase (or two) and start my own collection of Dead Can Dance.