| Garden of the Arcane Delights | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| EP by | ||||
| Released | August 1984 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 14:59 | |||
| Label | 4AD | |||
| Producer | Lisa Gerrard, Brendan Perry | |||
| Dead Can Dance chronology | ||||
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Garden of the Arcane Delights is the first EP by Australian band Dead Can Dance. It was released in August 1984 on record label 4AD. The tracks were later added to Dead Can Dance's self-titled debut album when it was re-released on CD.
The cover art is a sketch done by Brendan Perry and represents the themes of the song "The Arcane". As Perry explains:
The naked blindfolded figure, representing primal man deprived of perception, stands, within the confines of a garden (the world) containing a fountain and trees laden with fruit. His left arm stretches out – the grasping for knowledge – towards a fruit bearing tree, its trunk encircled by a snake. In the garden wall – the wall between freedom and confinement – are two gateways: the dualistic notion of choice. It is a Blakean universe in which mankind can only redeem itself, can only rid itself of blindness, through the correct interpretation of signs and events that permeate the fabric of nature's laws. [1]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [2] |
AllMusic retrospectively described the EP as "the clear transition between the group's competent but derivative goth start and something much, much more special." [2]
All tracks are written by Dead Can Dance (Lisa Gerrard, Brendan Perry)
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Carnival of Light" | 3:31 |
| 2. | "In Power We Entrust the Love Advocated" | 4:11 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Arcane" | 3:49 |
| 2. | "Flowers of the Sea" | 3:28 |
Dead Can Dance are an Australian neoclassical darkwave band from Melbourne. Currently composed of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, the group formed in 1981. They relocated to London the following year. Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described Dead Can Dance's style as "constructed soundscapes of mesmerising grandeur and solemn beauty; African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chant, Middle Eastern music, mantras, and art rock."
Clan of Xymox, also known as simply Xymox, are a Dutch rock band formed in 1981 best known as pioneers of darkwave music. Clan of Xymox featured a trio of singer-songwriters – Ronny Moorings, Anka Wolbert, and Pieter Nooten – and gained success in the 1980s, releasing their first two albums on 4AD, before releasing their third and fourth albums on Wing Records and scoring a hit single in the United States. The band is still active, continuing to tour and release records with Moorings as the sole remaining original member.
Lisa Germaine Gerrard is an Australian musician, singer and composer and member of the music group Dead Can Dance with music partner Brendan Perry. She is known for her unique singing style technique (glossolalia). She has a dramatic contralto voice and has a vocal range of three octaves.
Dead Can Dance is the debut studio album by Australian musical act Dead Can Dance. It was released on 27 February 1984 on the 4AD label.
4AD is a British record label owned by Beggars Group. It was founded in London under the name Axis Records by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1980 as an imprint of Beggars Banquet Records. The name was changed to 4AD after the release of the label's first four singles. Later that year, Watts-Russell and Kent purchased the label from Beggars Banquet to become an independent record label, and Kent sold his share to Watts-Russell a year later.
Wake is a compilation album by Dead Can Dance, released in 2003. It contains 26 tracks over two discs. It includes the song "The Lotus Eaters", recorded in 1998 as the last work by the band before their initial breakup.
Within the Realm of a Dying Sun is the third studio album by Australian band Dead Can Dance. It was released on 27 July 1987 by 4AD.
The Serpent's Egg is the fourth studio album by the Australian band Dead Can Dance, released on 24 October 1988 by record label 4AD.
Brendan Michael Perry is a British singer and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as half of the duo Dead Can Dance with Lisa Gerrard.
Toward the Within is the first live album by Australian band Dead Can Dance, released on 24 October 1994 by 4AD. It contains 15 songs, of which only four appeared on their previous albums, and two of which were later re-recorded and included on Lisa Gerrard's first solo album, The Mirror Pool. The others previously existed only in live performances and unofficial bootlegs, but were not officially released until Toward the Within. Along with Perry and Gerrard were a number of musicians who had performed with them on other occasions.
Into the Labyrinth is the sixth studio album by Australian band Dead Can Dance, released on 13 September 1993, by 4AD. It marked a strong shift from their previous albums, putting ethnic music influences at the forefront, as would be the case in the later albums. It was their first album completed on their own without the aid of guest musicians, and their first album to have a major-label release in the US, thanks to a distribution deal that 4AD had with Warner Bros. Records. It featured the single "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove". Into the Labyrinth was a major success, selling more than 500,000 copies worldwide.
Dead Can Dance (1981–1998) (2001) is a four-disc box set, containing three CDs of music spanning Dead Can Dance's career and a DVD of their 1994 video release Toward the Within.
Aion is the fifth studio album by the Australian band Dead Can Dance, released on 11 June 1990 by 4AD. The first album Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry wrote after the end of their romantic partnership, it was recorded at Perry's new estate, Quivvy Church in Ireland, with additional recording on "The Arrival and the Reunion" and "The End of Words" taking place at Woodbine Street Recording Studios in Leamington Spa.
Heidi Berry is a British-American singer-songwriter. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she recorded and released four critically acclaimed solo albums on the British independent record labels Creation and 4AD, for which she is best known.
Eye of the Hunter is the debut solo album by Brendan Perry, previously the male half of the band Dead Can Dance. The album was released by 4AD on 4 October 1999 in the UK and a day later in the US.
Dead Can Dance is an ambient, world music band which has released nine studio albums so far, two live albums, four compilation albums, one video album, one extended play and nine singles. The band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1981 but relocated to London, United Kingdom in 1982 and signed with 4AD Records where they disbanded in 1998.
Peter Lawrence Ulrich is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, recording artist and author.
Anastasis is a 2012 studio album by the British-Australian band Dead Can Dance. It is the eighth studio album by the band and the first after Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard disbanded in 1998. It was officially released on 13 August 2012 by PIAS Recordings, 16 years after the group's last album, Spiritchaser. It is also the band's first album since it left 4AD. "Anastasis" is the Greek word for "resurrection".
Ronny Moorings is the stage name of Ronald Moerings, a Dutch musician best known for his work with darkwave band Clan of Xymox. Moorings has been the band's principal singer/songwriter since the early 1990s.
Garden of the Arcane Delights + The John Peel Sessions is a compilation coupling the re-issue of the first and only EP by Australian band Dead Can Dance and two different sessions for the BBC Radio One John Peel show. It was released in November 2016 on record label 4AD with the Peel-supervised recordings allowed by arrangement with BBC Music.
