| The Serpent's Egg | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 24 October 1988 | |||
| Genre | Neoclassical dark wave | |||
| Length | 36:15 | |||
| Label | 4AD | |||
| Producer | Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, John A. Rivers | |||
| Dead Can Dance chronology | ||||
| ||||
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.
The album was the last produced while Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard were a romantic couple. A majority of the album was recorded in a multi-storey apartment block in the Isle of Dogs, London.
Perry discussed the album's title: "In a lot of aerial photographs of the Earth, if you look upon it as a giant organism—a macrocosmos—you can see that the nature of the life force, water, travels in a serpentine way". [1]
All tracks are written by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Host of Seraphim [2] " | 6:18 |
| 2. | "Orbis de Ignis" | 1:35 |
| 3. | "Severance" | 3:22 |
| 4. | "The Writing on My Father's Hand" | 3:50 |
| 5. | "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings" | 4:12 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Chant of the Paladin" | 3:48 |
| 2. | "Song of Sophia" | 1:24 |
| 3. | "Echolalia" | 1:17 |
| 4. | "Mother Tongue" | 5:16 |
| 5. | "Ullyses" | 5:09 |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
In a retrospective review, AllMusic said, "Perry and Gerrard continued to experiment and improve with The Serpent's Egg, as much a leap forward as Spleen and Ideal was some years previously", heaping particular praise on the album opener "The Host of Seraphim", which it called "so jaw-droppingly good that almost the only reaction is sheer awe". [3]
"The Host of Seraphim" was featured in the 1992 non-narrative documentary film Baraka (and was included in the film's soundtrack), the theatrical trailers for the 2003 film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and the 2006 film Home of the Brave , in the final scenes of the 2007 film The Mist [5] and in the 2018 film Lords of Chaos .
A short excerpt of "Ullyses" was also used as background music in the BBC Horizon episode #30.7 "Hunt For The Doomsday Asteroid" in February 1994, originally broadcast ahead of the predicted impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the planet Jupiter in July that same year.
"Severance" was used in the "Victims of Circumstance" episode of Miami Vice .
| Country | Date |
|---|---|
| Australia | 24 October 1988 |
| United States | 2 February 1994 |
Dead Can Dance is 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."
Lisa Germaine Gerrard is an Australian musician, singer and composer who rose to prominence as part of the music group Dead Can Dance with music partner Brendan Perry. She is known for her unique singing style technique (glossolalia), influenced by her childhood spent in multicultural areas of Melbourne. She has a dramatic contralto voice and has a vocal range of three octaves.
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.
Duality is a collaborative album by Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke released in 1998. It was Lisa Gerrard's second post-Dead Can Dance album after The Mirror Pool from 1995. Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry released their last album in 1996 and had officially disbanded Dead Can Dance earlier in 1998.
Spleen and Ideal is the second studio album by Australian band Dead Can Dance. It was released on 25 November 1985 by 4AD. The album spearheaded the group's sonic transition from their post-punk and gothic rock-influenced roots towards a neoclassical dark wave style.
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.
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 (1994) is the first official live album of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard's group Dead Can Dance. 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.
It'll End in Tears is the first album released by 4AD collective This Mortal Coil, an umbrella title for a loose grouping of guest musicians and vocalists brought together by label boss Ivo Watts-Russell. The album was released on 1 October 1984, and reached #38 on the UK Albums Chart. It features many of the artists on the 4AD roster at the time, including Cocteau Twins, Colourbox, and Dead Can Dance; as well as key post-punk figure Howard Devoto, who sang "Holocaust", one of two covers of songs from the Third/Sister Lovers album by Big Star. The other Alex Chilton-penned track, album opener "Kangaroo", was released as a single to promote the album. Two key songs were performed by Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, including Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren", which reached #66 on the UK Charts when released as This Mortal Coil's debut single a year before the album. The song remained on the UK Indie Chart for almost two years. Fraser also performed on "Another Day" by Roy Harper. 4AD would go on to release two further albums under the name of This Mortal Coil: Filigree & Shadow (1986) and Blood (1991).
The Mirror Pool is Lisa Gerrard's first solo album, released by 4AD in 1995.
Spiritchaser is the seventh studio album by Dead Can Dance, and would prove to be the last before the duo reunited fourteen years later for Anastasis. It expands on its exploration of world music, and like Into the Labyrinth, was recorded at Quivvy Church, Perry's personal studio in Ireland.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
This is the discography for Australian musician Lisa Gerrard.
"Hungry" is a song recorded by American singer Fergie, featuring guest vocals from American rapper Rick Ross. It was released officially on August 25, 2017, as a promotional single from Fergie's second studio album, Double Dutchess. Although the song was officially released in August 2017, Fergie began teasing the song in June 2016, posting "Hungry " and "Hungry ". Musically, the song is a hip hop/pop track with a "stuttering beat" and Middle Eastern elements. The track contains a sample of Dead Can Dance's 1987 song "Dawn of the Iconoclast".
Dionysus is the ninth studio album by the British-Australian band Dead Can Dance, officially released on 2 November 2018 by PIAS Recordings, six years after the group's last album, Anastasis.
