aion

Dead Can Dance reached back to the Renaissance to craft ambient folk grooves into this gift of gothic glossolalia.  Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry formed the group in 1981 in Melbourne, Australia and moved to London, England where they signed with 4AD and took part in label owner Ivo Watts-Russell's It'll End In Tears album with This Mortal Coil.  They recorded a series of increasingly diverse soundscape experiments (Dead Can Dance and the Garden of the Arcane Delights EP in 1984,  Spleen and Ideal in 1985,  Within the Realm of a Dying Sun in 1987,  and  The Serpent's Egg in 1988) with liturgical and ethnic musical motifs with a revolving cast of musical cohorts.  By the time they came to produce 'Aion', the romantic couple had separated.   The sessions took place on Perry's estate in Quivvy Church in Ireland,  with a couple of tracks being recorded at at Woodbine Studios in Warwickshire, England.  The album features  Lisa Gerrard on voice and all instruments and Brendan Perry on design, voice, and all instruments;  except    David Navarro Sust on vocals for "The Arrival And The Reunion" and "The End Of Words";   John Bonnar on keyboard arrangements;  Robert Perry on bagpipes for "As The Bell Rings The Maypole Spins";    "The Promised Womb" includes Andrew Robinson and Anne Robinson on bass viol and  Honor Carmody and Lucy Robinson on tenor viol.    The album cover is taken from the "Earth" panel of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.   

Gerrard:    "Our art was a guider on our foreheads, it was like a crown, it was the most important thing we possessed and it represented everything of who we were and where we were going. When I work with Brendan there’s a lot of literature and painting and philosophy and discovery, you know? It’s not just music - it evolves into that but there are a lot of things on the palette before we arrive at a finished work and before it can become that so sometimes it can take two to three years…"

Perry:   "The whole key to me is that you can´t express music without having experienced it for real.  Having memories; emotional, tangible, physical experiences of life. Transmutation; where you take your experience and you become intoxicated with it. Its a cultural thing, it is the food sharing with people, for example, or family parties where musicians are present; traditions, stories and becoming intoxicated with all that. It takes me to a journey as an artist so I can do a transfiguration experience that will pour light into my music. It is not an attempt to mirror, its more impressionist in that sense. If you take that principle, the life principle that accompanies an old musician interested in early music or even a post punk band like Joy Division and letting yourself embrace by that influence. Its more or less the cultural evolution of art in history."










the word Aion - alternately spelled Aaon - signifies an age, but also the entire duration of the world or universe. In Platonic philosophy it represents benevolent power existing within eternity










http://www.deadcandance.com/











"The End of Words" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lei46t6P1K4




"Black Sun"





 "As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcD0kUyYozY




'Aion'
full album:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqxRzGMxZxf2pSod6TuJ0VXxiVDFNJ-AX


All songs credited to Dead Can Dance / Lisa Gerrard / Brendan Perry, except where noted.

"The Arrival and the Reunion"  – 1:38
"Saltarello" (traditional) – 2:33
"Mephisto"  – 0:54
"The Song of the Sibyl" (traditional) – 3:45
"Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book"  – 6:03
"As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins"  – 5:16
"The End of Words"  – 2:05
"Black Sun"  – 4:56
"Wilderness"  – 1:24
"The Promised Womb"  – 3:22
"The Garden of Zephirus"  – 1:20
"Radharc"  – 2:48

the great annihilator

Swans went burning backwards through a cosmic gothic blood promise to create this insane unconscious true love annihilation.  After a decade  the group had developed from a visceral industrial onslaught ( 'Filth' , 'Cop' , 'Holy Money' , and  'Greed' )  into a more diverse and accessible sound (  'Children of God' , 'The Burning World' , 'White Light from the Mouth of Infinity' , and 'Love of Life' ) coinciding with a brief flirtation with major label Uni/MCA. The group took three years to record their next album 'The Great Annihilator' with Michael Gira on electric guitar, vocals, electric 12 string guitar, sounds, acoustic guitar, and production;  Jarboe on vocals, background vocals, sounds, organ, and keyboard;  Bill Rieflin on drums, percussion, sounds, and 12 string acoustic guitar;   Algis Kizys on bass guitar;  Norman Westberg on electric guitar;  Clinton Steele on electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and drone guitar;  and Ted Parsons on drums.   

Gira would recount:    "The new album was recorded in Chicago while we were still living in New York. That was a long disastrous process, though. We thought we had some pretty strong interest from major labels for the record, and that went on for over a year. When that didn't come through, we didn't know what we were doing. At the time, the person that was doing our business was associated with Martin Atkins at Invisible, so we just decided to put it out on his label because he was available and had good distribution ... Actually, we've recorded in a lot of different places around the world, and this just came about like most things, it seems, through inertia. We got hooked up with what was supposed to be cheap studio time there. I spent three months living inside a windowless warehouse, never going outside, drinking far too much and making fresh enemies with whomever had the bad luck to come in to work on the album or stare at me like an evil troll on display. A real fun time! Jarboe and I slept in a tent in the room next to the recording console because the warehouse was infested with mosquitoes that bred in the toxic sludge outside in nearby Cabrini Green and worked their way in through the air vents, honing in on our blood. It was like camping out, except in a subterranean cell where nothing ever changes. Most of my time was spent shuffling around comatose in the debris like a zombie, listening to the same sounds over and over, trying to remember what I was doing there - this is my impression of Chicago. But don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed myself. That's why the album sounds so great!  ...  I wouldn't say there is a single lyrical or thematic thread to it. There are a few references to a quasi-cosmic phenomenon, the great annihilator, I don't know if you know about that...I'm certainly no science freak but according to Stephen Hawking's theory, the ultimate black hole into which all matter, time and events get sucked into once-the universe starts reversing itself is called the great annihilator. So its like this inhaling and exhaling process of creation and destruction of the universe. To me. it was a nice image really, because I don't know much about science-l didn't even graduate from high school. It's kind of like a Buddhist concept. Actually. modern physics is veering toward Buddhism more and more. it seems, like all matter being sentient. I saw this physicist giving a lecture once about matter having intentionality."






http://swans.pair.com/





Where Does A Body End?




Warm





Mind/Body/Light/Sound




'The Great Annihilator'
full album:




All songs by Michael Gira except "My Buried Child" (lyrics: Michael Gira, music: Michael Gira, Jarboe) and "Out" (Michael Gira, Jarboe).


1 - In
2 - I Am The Sun - 2:27
3 - She Lives! - 5:51
4 - Celebrity Lifestyle - 12:52
5 - Mother/Father - 17:02
6 - Blood Promise - 21:09
7 - Mind/Body/Light/Sound - 25:25
8 - My Buried Child - 30:18
9 - Warm - 33:17
10 - Alcohol The Seed - 38:11
11 - Killing For Company - 41:41
12 - Mother's Milk - 48:36
13 - Where Does A Body End? - 51:03
14 - Telepathy - 54:46
15 - The Great Annihilator - 1:00:57
16 - Out - 1:05:51






live 1995
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LQxz7j0WwA