Dead Can Dance Resurrected

Well done to Slow Pulse Girl at  Nightmares On Wax  for winning the Clan of Xymox Blind Hearts 12" promo. Hopefully another competition will come up again soon, as collection duplication is a constant and ongoing issue.

The piece I did on the Bauhaus singles of Dark Entries was kind of the way I wanted to go with this blog. I wanted it to become a good source to find definitive listings of a release. Yet even at the stage I am at, I am struggling to complete a release with all of it's variations. I suppose it comes back to the question again, how far do you go? The Dark Entries collection of 7 versions that I listed does not include any test pressings, if any test pressings exist at all anymore.

I starting to think that maybe I should just bite the bullet and stick my neck out with a few releases and say "this is every version that exists". I'm just wary of making out I'm an arse that thinks he knows it all, when in fact we are all on a journey that constantly changes and cheats (sometimes).

Maybe I will start and add more now that the collection is starting to take a decent form. I'm currently at 596 items collected that doesn't include posters, postcards and oddities. I still have roughly 900 items left to collect that I know of (again not including non music formats). So I still have one hell of a way to go.

To add to this, I'm not exactly shutting myself off to other music in the process. Dead Can Dance have their new album out called Anastasis, which I just couldn't help but buy, and of course not just in one format either. The album came as:

"Exclusive Limited Edition Box Set (Edition of 2000); boxed in custom made deluxe hardbound book, embossed with band logo and album title, and featuring 8 specially designed pages of album art and lyric sheets. Autographed 6" x 8" lithograph artwork print; USB drive contains the full album in high fidelity 24bit digital audio and album artwork." 

I'm a sucker for it. I had to have it and, of course, I couldn't let the chance of having the double clear vinyl version pass me by either. So I spent £55 on both of them and then had to fork out over £18 extra to get them delivered. The price for a second hand copy of the limited edition CD has rocketed from its new price. This always happens generally when a limited stock runs out. Some of the stock gets bought by traders who bet on making a quick from the flurry of interest the new album has created. Demand is up but supply has dried out, perfect for a quick price hike. I suppose you can't blame a trader wanting to make a living and a trader's prices only reflect (mostly) the price the customer is prepared to pay. 

The Dead Can Dance Anastasis limited edition has already sold twice on discogs for over £130 and  there are 5 for sale at the moment for between £120 and £220. It's very likely that the price will fall as initial excitement wanes. 

The album itself is wonderful. It seems as though Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard are collaborating more as they did in the eighties. In later albums of Dead Can Dance the music was more separated by the two artists and less collaborated. But now they do seem to be working together more as the style of the album is of both artists. I also think that it is probably the most accessible of all the Dead Can Dance albums, an album that would be a good introduction to Dead Can Dance if you have never listened to them before.

It has whetted my appetite to see them live in October. The only issue I could have with this album is that the mastering seems rushed. I waited to give the album a listen until the vinyl was delivered. The sound quality of Vinyl far surpasses the sound quality of CD's or downloads, so I wanted to listen to it at its best. Unfortunately the sound was a little flat. At first I thought it was the vinyl mastering, as these days vinyl records are made from a digital recording, which is actually defeating the object of having it on vinyl. But the CD version is also a little flat, but perhaps not as obvious. It's such a pity as the music is just awesome. 

You never know, if the unmixed tracks have been kept a better mastering may be done in future. But don't let it put you off, to the average ear the mastering quality probably won't even be noticed. What's more important is that the music on Anastasis is incredible, give it a listen

http://www.deadcandance.com/main/

Win a Clan Of Xymox Promo and Feel Loved

Clan of Xymox are a difficult band to figure out. They started with real genius, pushed their luck a bit too far following trends instead of exploring and experimenting with what they were doing, flopped in a huge way, then tried to pick up where their invention was last dropped but finding some of the talent was gone. Of Course Clan of Xymox themselves would never agree this is correct, except most fans would agree that this is the simple but accurate depiction.

Don’t get me wrong, the re-invented Clan of Xymox aren’t rubbish, but they do lack a certain flair that set them apart from their counterparts. The biggest issue is the fact that there seems to be way too much ego in the way to have any accurate or factual history simply laid out about the band.

The first album Subsequent Pleasures was a self released album that has a shroud of mystery over it from the beginning. As mentioned in earlier blogs, it is rumoured that Ronny Moorings, the singer of Clan of Xymox, didn’t like the quality so threw away most of the 500 copies made. Whether this has any truth is difficult to prove, but these rumours have helped the original version become very collectable, fetching a handsome price.

Once signed to 4AD their first Official album that was released called Clan of Xymox. Again some interesting confusion is raised because the band were calling themselves just Xymox, a Tag, I suppose you could call it, that Ronny Moorings had given himself (a bit like Jonny Halfhead...although someone gave me that, I didn’t invent it). The first album title was supposed to be Clan of Xymox by the band Xymox. But in the understandable confusion the Clan Of.. stuck.

The debut album is very much in the vein of New Order. Quite dark, quite dancey and electronic, with hints of industrial, or what was to become industrial music. Detail was its greater hallmark. Interesting shifts and lots of little samples and noises keep you interested and adds an atmosphere and realism to the music. This was something for me which defined a difference between Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre’s music. Tangerine Dream were session electronic musicians. They could bang out an album every six months. Their music had a handful of layers and was clever in its simplicity. But Jean-Michel Jarre’s albums took time in the production process of adding a very rich texture using many, many layers and tweaks which gave his music more depth and realism. Clan of Xymox has this depth and multi layers.

The next album took the same ideas from the first album and galvanised them. Medusa is a perfect album. The production is spot on and the mix balanced just right. The songs have interesting and unexpected twists. The lyrics are simple, but have an air of honesty that allows the user to relate and feel the mood without being patronised. The whole album feels shared and equal between the musicians, but it would seem that tensions were building, there were too many talents wrapped tightly into too small a space.

The next single was to be their last with 4AD before the band changed their name to what it was going to be originally “Xymox”. The single was Blind Hearts, which was released on 4AD and then also released on the label the band moved to, Wing Records. This song was to feature on the next album Twist Of Shadows. Twist Of Shadows is the Medusa album made more accessible. It’s a lot lighter and more pop orientated, which is where the inner band tensions were. The band had a good balance of experimentalism and a desire to be popular with Medusa, with Twist of Shadows the urge to be popular was starting to win out at the detriment of experimentation.

Twist of Shadows is probably the most accessible as an introduction to Clan Of Xymox. Because of its desire for popularity, it is a little dated with a typical ‘80’s sound.

 

The band went on towards the pull of dance music in the early nineties like bands were trying to do at the time, latching onto an emerging house and techno scenes. But this drive for success and trend contributed to their downfall and by the mid nineties, the talents within Clan Of Xymox (or Xymox as they were now called) where pulling so hard in several directions that the whole band split apart.

Eventually the singer, Ronny Moorings, was left alone in the band. He decided to start from scratch and return to the dark moody, industrial sound that had originally defined Clan Of Xymox. Although this has been a partial return to original form, you can tell a lot of the talent is no longer with Clan Of Xymox. I have only heard the first album of the resurrected Clan Of Xymox called Hidden Faces and then a couple of later singles and I wasn’t too impressed. But then my musical period of experimentation from the early nineties was swamped with wannabe Sisters Of Mercy bands that got so repetitive and predictable, so when I hear another band doing the repetitive and predictable and also sound like they are trying to mimic the Sisters of Mercy, I automatically switch off.

Maybe the more recent Clan Of Xymox offers more hope, I don’t know, maybe one day I’ll give them yet another go.

There is another interesting psychological twist to my tale and Clan Of Xymox that works against myself picking the band up again. In the early nineties, I loved the first three Clan Of Xymox albums. When going to alternative and goth nights several times a week I would proclaim how great they were with the DJ’s and event organisers constantly and even lend copies for them to listen to. But as always, it fell on deaf ears because they weren’t in vogue, and everyone wanted to listen and dance to the same predictable stuff. Now they have become the goth underground darlings, with everyone proclaiming how they loved this stuff years ago. Bollocks! So I can’t help but be annoyed and want to steer clear of this fickle trend and current opinion shite. That doesn’t help trying to keep and unbiased opinion either

So to commemorate this great band, and of course because of the fact that I am a dimwit and yet again I have in my possession two versions of this release...I am once again giving away a 4AD release. Well that’s not strictly true as this version isn’t on 4AD, but you can forgive me for that. The winner this time round will receive a copy of Xymox’s 12” single of Blind Hearts. This is the US Promo version on Wing Records that was the bridge between Clan Of Xymox and Xymox. An interesting piece of history.
I will even post it for free. Feel the love.....

Please don’t enter just to sell it...that’s not the point.

 

For a chance to win this lovely article, just friend me on Facebook and send me a message telling me you want it, because you just want it OK! One lucky winner will be chosen at random by picking the entrant that shouts the loudest

I’m Jonny Halfhead and you have been a wonderful audience