Dionysus

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Dancing isn’t just for the dead. After 6 years off the radar and two breakups, Dead Can Dance called upon Dionysus to send the living into a trance. The Melbourne duo, who started on 4AD in the dark wave era of Bauhaus and the Cocteau Twins, broke up in 1998 before returning to the studio in 2012 with the well-named Anastasis (the Greek word for "resurrection"). So, sixteen years of silence. With Dionysus, the DCD recipe has changed a little: the liturgic invocations give way to ancient traditional strings and percussion, and the pair's vocals are stripped right down to give centre stage to the choirs. The uniqueness of this eleventh album resides in the concept that underlies it:

This diptych album consists of two acts which are made up of seven movements. Dionysus is also the pair's first concept album, and it concentrates on European rituals dedicated to the Greek god of drunkenness (still practiced). These mystical instrumental experiments last over sixteen minutes with the second almost reaching twenty. Perry: "I wanted to give [Dionysus] an arranged form, similar to an oratorio, a classical form, as I wanted to insure in a way that people would appreciate it by listening to it from beginning to end." The album moves from a rite of the sea to almost sixteen minutes of bacchanals. This is followed by The Mountain-The Invocation-The Forest-Psychopomp, a confluence of Eastern and European flutes, folk instruments, field recordings and samples, the whistles of birds, inspired incantations and even African rhythms. All of this makes for a very fresh and natural sound, with a strong sense of orchestration and a universal dimension to the record. Even if the Mexican mask on the album cover has nothing to do with Greek mythology, it serves to remind us that faith does not necessarily go hand in hand with culture. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz