Into the Labyrinth (Dead Can Dance album)

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Into the Labyrinth
Into labyrinth - dead can dance.jpg
Studio album by
Dead Can Dance
Released13 September 1993
RecordedEarly 1993
Genre Neoclassical dark wave, world, neo-medieval
Length
  • 55:26 (CD)
  • 65:25 (LP)
Label
Producer Brendan Perry
Dead Can Dance chronology
A Passage in Time
(1991)		Into the Labyrinth
(1993)		 Toward the Within
(1994)
Singles from Into the Labyrinth
  1. "The Host of Seraphim / Yulunga"
    Released: 1993 ( Baraka promo)
  2. "The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove"
    Released: 1993
  3. "The Carnival Is Over"
    Released: 1993 (U.S promo)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [1]
Christgau's Consumer Guide D [2]
Entertainment Weekly A− [3]
Los Angeles Times Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [4]
Q Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [5]

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. [6]

Contents

Overview

Into the Labyrinth was a marked change on many fronts from the previous album Aion , released three years earlier. Perry and Gerrard were now living far apart and writing music independently (Perry was living on an island in the middle of a river in Ireland, while Gerrard lived in Australia with her husband and daughter). For the album, Gerrard traveled back to Perry's studio Quivvy Church (in County Cavan, Ireland) where they merged their songs and recorded the album over a period of three months together. This was the first album where Perry and Gerrard played all instruments, without guest musicians. The lyrics are in English on tracks 2–4, 8, and 11. Gerrard sings in a self-created wordless vocal technique similar to glossolalia on tracks 1, 5–7, 9–10. Tracks 3 and 10 were performed a cappella.

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 ).

The title alludes to the classic legend of Greek mythology about Theseus going into the Labyrinth against the Minotaur. While not necessarily a concept album, this link adds some conceptual cohesion to the album. This theme is reflected in several song titles: "Ariadne" (the legendary Ariadne giving her clew to Theseus); "Towards the Within" (of the Labyrinth, the Minotaur being at the centre); "The Spider's Stratagem" (waiting at the centre of her web like the Minotaur waiting at the centre of the Labyrinth—but also a Bertolucci film adapting a Borges short story from Labyrinths): and "Emmeleia" (the Greek dance of tragedy)

Track information

Track listing

No.TitleLength
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

Tracks written by Dead Can Dance (Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry), except track 3 (words and music by Dr Robert Dwyer Joyce, traditional, arranged by Dead Can Dance) and track 11 (words by Bertolt Brecht, English translation by John Willett).

The 1993 (DAD 3013), 2008 and 2010 limited-edition double-vinyl LP releases had / 1–3 / 4–7 // "Bird" 8–9 / "Spirit" 10–11 / adding the following:

The 2016 double-vinyl reissue (DAD 3621) features the CD's track list over sides A, B and C; "Bird" and "Spirit" make up side D of this release.

They were the two earlier bonus tracks from the 1991 compilation A Passage in Time , and they were collected again on Dead Can Dance (2001).

Personnel

Musical

Instruments include: bongos (on 9), sitar (on 2, 7), tabla (on 7, 9).

Technical

Artwork

Charts

Chart performance for Into the Labyrinth
Chart (1993)Peak
position
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [12] 70
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [13] 54
UK Albums (OCC) [14] 47
UK Independent Albums (OCC) [15] 5
US Billboard 200 [16] 122

Release history

CountryDate
United Kingdom13 September 1993
United States14 September 1993
Spain1994
Russia2006
Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Europe2008
United States2010

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References

Sources consulted

Endnotes

  1. ↑ Raggett, Ned. "Into the Labyrinth – Dead Can Dance". AllMusic . Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  2. ↑ Christgau, Robert (2000). "Dead Can Dance: Into the Labyrinth". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s . St. Martin's Press. ISBN   0-312-24560-2 . Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  3. ↑ Jones, Anderson (15 October 1993). "Into the Labyrinth". Entertainment Weekly . p. 76. Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  4. ↑ Ali, Lorraine (7 November 1993). "Dead Can Dance, 'Into the Labyrinth,' 4AD". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  5. ↑ "Dead Can Dance: Into the Labyrinth". Q (86): 116. November 1993.
  6. ↑ "A Quietus Interview | as Wide as the Universe: Dead Can Dance Interviewed". Thequietus.com. 4 September 2012.
  7. ↑ Aboriginal Dreamtime Legends: "Yulunga and the Watagora", Burramadagal clan of the Dharrug tribe
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Into the Labyrinth press kit, op. cit.
  9. ↑ "Joy Division - Closer Lyrics - Full Album". Lyricsondemand.com.
  10. ↑ "Ancient Greece and Rome 1200 B.c.e.-476 C.e.: Dance Summary". Bookrags.com. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
  11. ↑ In 1996, Ron Butters (Professor of English and Cultural Anthropology and a member of the Linguistics Faculty) was asked by a student if he could identify the language of "Emmeleia". Butters made a transcription but couldn't go further, then asked about it on the American Dialect Society mailing-list but received no answer. (Link to Butters' 1996 post with transcript at AmericanDialect.org.) Butters' transcription could possibly be the basis for all the current "Emmeleia lyrics" pages, but because the lyrics pages are much more precise, it is possible that the original Gerrard script was published somewhere or provided to fans.
  12. ↑ "Dutchcharts.nl – Dead Can Dance – Into the Labyrinth" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
  13. ↑ "Offiziellecharts.de – Dead Can Dance – Into the Labyrinth" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
  14. ↑ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
  15. ↑ "Independent Albums". Music Week . 2 October 1993. p. 20. ISSN   0265-1548.
  16. ↑ "Billboard 200 – Week of October 2, 1993". Billboard . Retrieved 29 August 2023.
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