Stegzy's Music Project

A commentary on Stegzy's album collection

Apr 16

Immortal Memory – Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy [#615]

by stegzy

Immortal_memory_-_gerrard_cassidy_-_front.jpgWhen she’s not wailing away hauntingly with Brendan Perry and the rest of Dead Can Dance, Lisa Gerrard likes to loan her distinctive siren call to other atmospheric music makers like Irish composer Patrick Cassidy (Hannibal {2001} and Salem’s Lot {2004}).

This pretty much sounds no different to any other Lisa Gerrard work and will no doubt appear in cheaply produced tense, moody-broody television dramas and films set in rainy locations and involving despairing situations such as wearing raincoats in Washington DC or the protagonist not being able to tell people about something awful they’ve uncovered because “the man” won’t stand for it.

I think if I really want to feel depressed and out of luck, this is the album I’ll listen to.

2004 4AD Lisa Gerrard Modern Classical Patrick Cassidy

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Apr 18

Gothic Spleens – Dead Can Dance [#544]

by stegzy

UnknownAs we finally come out of the (reduced) gothic compilation portion of the project, we see the peaks of “Greatest Hits” ahead of us but until then there are a few more albums we need to visit.

Gothic Spleens is another bootleg album for Neoclassical/Goth group Dead Can Dance. Recorded from a live radio broadcast from Hamburg’s  Musikhalle in 1990. It has a similar track listing to Golden Age but certainly doesn’t disappoint. Even if we’ve heard it all before.

1990 bootleg Brendan Perry compilations Dead Can Dance gothic Lisa Gerrard Live NeoClassical

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Jul 17

Annwyn, Beneath the Waves – Faith and the Muse [Album #76]

by stegzy

Screen Shot 2014-06-10 at 13.11.55Annwyn, Beneath the Waves – Faith and the Muse

Until the last decade I had shamefully only heard of Faith and the Muse in rumours and student bedroom wall posters. Faith and the Muse have a similar style to Ordo Equitum Solis. Much like OES, Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, Faith and the Muse are popular amongst the dark clothe wearing goth fraternity. Dark in style with mediaeval tones, Faith and the Muse mix open atmospheric chords with wailing floaty dressed female vocals and, in some tracks, militaristic drumming.

I had only listened to Annwyn once before. I’m not sure I would choose them for a car mix tape or to accompany a dinner party. Unless I was trying to be some sort of hipster goth or impress some Twiglet (sic) obsessed teenagers on their first forays into the dark.

I don’t know why I find this kind of music enjoyable. Perhaps it is the mental images of  dark and wet rainy streets that it conjures. In all, if your folk is too cheery, this is what you want. In a room. With joss sticks and pentagrams.

 

1994 Faith and the Muse

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Jun 30

Album # 59 – Aion – Dead Can Dance

by stegzy

220px-Dead_Can_Dance-Aion_(album_cover) Aion – Dead Can Dance

Take one bag of illegal herbal substance.

Add several goths.

Stir with plenty of velvet.

Stew for the duration of the album and you will experience neoclassicalist dark wave at its full.

This was the first DCD album I ever bought following a night at a very wild goth filled party in Liverpool during the 1990s.

Do you know that album people always say changed their lives? Well this is the one for me. Everything musical I’ve bought or downloaded since I heard this album is a direct result of having listened to this album.

Short of wearing black, moping about and smelling of pachulia; listening to Aion is an experience. You’ve more than likely heard most of the tracks anyway on documentaries or in trailers for films involving some sort of  mediaeval jiggery pokery.    Tracks that stand out include Fortune Present Gifts Not According to the Book, Saltarello and Black Sun.

Much like Blood Axis’ Absinthe, this album has accompanied me on trips into somnambulistic realms following surgery or late night meditative chats with Shamen. But not with the added unease that Absinthe brings. Aion is one of those Guardian reader type “Coffee Table” albums like Buena Vista Social Club. 

So much so, if you want to be a hipster, get this, then tell everyone how dated it is once they too admit to owning a copy.

Dead Can Dance

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