Customer Reviews

1981-1998 (W/ Dvd)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this set, and here's why:(1) The selection of tracks is excellent, and I know everyone, including myself, will have a favorite (or two) missing; however, there is great coverage of the studio albums, as well as a number of rarities/unreleased, the effect of which is to allow us to hear the evolution of a great artistic collaboration. Of course, as an introduction to the magic of DCD, this set is perfect, because newcomers will, as a matter of course, go buy the original releases!
(2) The packaging is beautiful,with an atmospheric selection of photographs, and an informative text that is mostly quotes from interviews with the major players.
(3)A 4th disc that is a DVD of a great concert performance, as well as a selection of miscellaneous videos. Is this a first for a popular music box set? I don't know, but it's a terrific idea, and the perfect excuse to order up that DVD player.
This set will become a cherished record of an exciting, unique period of music making by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard. Get it before it becomes a collectors' item!

I've been eagerly anticipating the release of this collection since its announcement months before. This set delivers on its promises and there is much on this box set for Dead Can Dance fans to salivate over. It comes in a thoughtfully designed sleeve, with the 4 discs included inside a hardbound book of landscape photographs and text information.

One of the notable items to be excited about is the inclusion of the DVD. This includes the concert performance TOWARD THE WITHIN (with interview footage), along with five promotional videos ("The Host of Seraphim", "Frontier", "The Protagonist", "Yulunga", and "The Carnival Is Over"). The videos are rich with imaginative direction and ideas (especially "Carnival"), such a far cry from the rubbish that passes as music videos these days. It's a shame DCD didn't produce more of these.

The audio CDs also offer new and exciting additions to the DCD cataloge. "Labor of Love" and "Threshold" find DCD (band mates Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard) closer to a conventional Rock band unit, complete w/ guitars and drum machine rhythms, and thus got tagged early in their career as "Gothic Rock". DCD surprised everyone when they made a stunning foray into exploring music from various cultures and time periods, thus producing diverse material from the Italian 14th century dance-step of "Salterello" to the percussive African rhythms of "Nierika".

The most valuable item on this set is the inclusion of the final track that Perry and Gerrard recorded together as DCD, called "The Lotus Eaters". This song was to be included on the band's follow-up to the SPIRITCHASER album, but the rest of the proposed album's music never materialized, leaving this bittersweet glimse of what musical directions DCD might have taken next. Gerrard weaves her stunning voice in and around the leisurely pace of the drums and Perry's guitar playing. The impact of the break-up of DCD is felt greatest on this song.

If you haven't discovered DCD's music yet then I suggest that you discover a band whose body of work is both ahead and out of our time.

Oh how I have waited for this day. Waited, longed, prayed to anything that I thought (cared), crossed my fingers, dreamt, daydreamed, etc, etc, etc. I think you get the point.

Here it is folks. In all its glory. I find it to be an EXTREMELY difficult task compiling a "best of" DCD discography. I've always said, and I still maintain, that if you have to get only 3 DCD cd's, it should be "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun," "The Serpent's Egg," and "AION" respectively. In my humble opinion, it gets no finer than that period of DCD. "AION" is but the very threshold of the celtic/tribal sound that would later permeate DCD's sound. The previous two reflect the more neo-quasi-classical sound on which DCD developed its reputation. By all means, stay away from their first cd. It is, even by Brendan and Lisa's own admission, an utter travesty.

Anyway, on to this package. This is absolutely beautiful. I own everything ever done by DCD and any of the "side-project" outings. Thus, there was not a TON of stuff here that I didn't already have. But, sweet jesus, it has the very thing I have been lusting after for years and years: a DVD release of their live concert. This was previously only available on VHS and, confusingly, the short-lived Laser-disc. Having seen DCD on the SF leg of their tour, I so wanted to experience the beauty again. Now I can. In absolute technologically advanced splendor.

Get this, get this, get this, get this. I cannot stress this enough. If you are DCD fanatic such as myself, you probably already have it. If you're merely a completist, get it too. If you want to become acquainted with DCD, it's quite a good start. But I caution you, it will instill in you the desire to run out and purchase all you can by DCD. Which now, thanks to Ivo's sell out of 4AD, you can get quite easily. Does anyone remember when 4AD was independent and you had to pay outrageously high import costs to get this stuff on LP? Does anyone remember when "Lonely Is An Eyesore" was released and shown in "select" theatres?

Anyway, I digress. But as a close, if you are new to this whole genre, look into the 4AD label much further. PLEASE check out "bands" such as This Mortal Coil, The Cocteau Twins, Xymox, Dif Juz, any of Dominick Appleton's efforts, Wolfgang Press, (early-era) Lush, Pale Saints, etc. I could go on and on. Just dig a little. The road is endless. And maybe, just maybe, you'll realize that years and years before Projekt was even around, Ivo and the 4AD crew were creating beautiful, and far superior, music.

Enjoy kiddies. Also note that there has been a recent flood of re-issued/re-packaged/re-boxed multi-disc releases by such geniuses as Joy Division, and even a 4-cd Echo and The Bunnymen box set. Kudos to Warner Brothers and Rhino for such fine, excellently packaged material. Now I beg.....PLEASE, PLEASE, tell me such an effort is in the works for Nick Cave!

I'm a huge Dead Can Dance fan, and bought this Box Set to complete my collection. Was it worth it? Without listening to it, I can say a definitive and enthusiastic "yes!"

Why? Because I opened up the package to find a DVD inside with the Towards the Within Live concert video in it. Only better! The DVD also includes 5 music/promotional videos. The video for "Yulunga" set to the visuals from the film Baraka is a definite highlight. Also the videos for "Protagonist" and "Frontier" are quite a nice/strange visual experience.

The packaging is a beautiful booklet full of images and a history. The only drawback is that it's so nice, I don't want to open it to get the discs out.

Any new Dead Can Dance fan will enjoy the three discs that will expose them to this wonderful music. Any old DCD fan will want this for the DVD. Totally worth it.

I am a fervent fan of DCD, owning all of the albums and related soundtrack work. I also own the VHS version of the Toward the Within concert.

Needless to say I was excited to hear of this boxed set release. Unfortunately there are only a few extra audio tracks that I did not already own.

The DVD was the biggest disappointment. I expected a quality video transfer and a remastering of audio. Intead the video quality is only scarcely better than the VHS, and it is NOT remixed into Dolby Digital. Instead, most of the sound sadly comes from the center channel in Pro-Logic mode.

If you are new to the DCD scene, then this is a worthy buy, it will get you the gist of DCD without having to buy all the CDs.

In contrast, if you already have a large DCD collection, decide if the extra tracks are really worth your money.

Dead Can Dance's cover art invokes that seen on Joy Division's own 1981 final release STILL, but despite the overarching sense of dread that colors almost all of the music by both bands, Dead can Dance offered a far more widescreen view of all those cosmic uncertainties we depend on day-to-day reality to shield us from. Both Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, DCD's yang and yin, accessed the beauty in uncertainty as well as the listener's fear of same, but each came at it from a different angle: Perry realized as Jim Morrison did before him that (to quote William Blake) there are things that are familiar and things that are not, and in between were doors (no pun intended). And doors were meant to be opened, which may explain
Perry's Morrison-like stance as the guide across the threshold
into the darkness. Lisa Gerrard, with her often wordless swooping alto, seemed to embody That Which Was Waiting Over There, and which in its verbally inarticulate yet vast connotations and denotations, defied description because (as in the St. Vitus Dance-like "Cantara," just one example to be found here), painted such strong images in the listener's mind it didn't need words to bring it to life. The two approaches do not
have Ian Curtis' Biblical sense of bewildered acceptance, but
the totality of DCD's presentation is plenty evocative without that one element. DCD drew their musical palette from Gregorian chant, the choral works of John Tavener and Arvo Part, Eastern European folk music and the symphonies of Henryk Gorecki (#3 most strongly), all elements far enough off the mainstream to underline the otherworldliness of their point of view (see "Avatar," "Summoning of the Muse," "How Fortunate the Man With None"). The use of choruses, cellos, heavy echo and horns after the first recording iced the cake, augmenting their ideas' sense of massiveness (see "De Profundis," "The Host of Seraphim"). Over seventeen years, this approach (added to and widened to include Middle Eastern and African influences as well)
brought us a whiff of that which was not explainable, its allure and its ability to repulse; balancing on that knife-edge, listeners who were willing to suspend their disbelief heard
something in the band's art which an increasingly secular, pre-packaged culture and society hastens to bury a bit deeper with every passing day. Hamlet was right when he told Polonius that there are things in heaven and earth which are not dreamt of in our philosophy: thanks to Dead can Dance among others, we can still hear them and glimpse them, looking in at us in our little circle of light that we call reality.

Normally, if I already have most of the material, I wouldn't get a "best of" just because of the repackaging. However, this box set is one of the most thrilling combinations of music and art and ought to be in a museum. This is the first time I teared up while acquainting myself with an album and its artwork.

The outer box and hardcover of the book, much like Joy Division's initial release of "Still", is a hard cardboard giving this a generic, low-key appearance. Once opened, the pages explode with colorful photos of landscapes and architecture.

The only drawbacks I see:
1)The CDs & dvd takes some care to remove to avoid harming the surrounding pages
2)It's so beautiful I'll end up showing it to everyone, even the disinterested
3)I'll probably buy a second set and keep it cloistered

I'm forecasting a deluge of positive reviews so I will end this review here.

Dead Can Dance (DCD) music can move you deeply, both in an emotional and in a physical sense. While simple at first glance, it has a quite complex background and you can almost always find details you didn't realized yet.

Regarding this box set, it tries to cover all DCD career and I think it does it quite good. Yes, radio versions and first songs have poor sound quality. Yes, song ABCD is missing. But you can still find the musical essence of DCD in the CD (and their musical essence is unique and really beautiful).

The presentation is luxurious (hand-made looking booklet with discs intertwined inside), although I don't know if it's worth the money.

The booklet is beautiful, but I can't find the relationship between the photos and the text. Some lyrics are incomplete but I find it a good work anyway.

The concert and the videos are simply great. It's just amazing to watch Lisa, Brendan and all the band playing live. But... again, image quality is poor (it seems as if they just moved the VHS to DVD, so you get VHS image quality, not DVD image quality). No subtitles, but the DVD menu is original.

In short: if you're a fan and you're missing anything contained in the box, consider buying it. If not, maybe you should consider other alternatives (the box European equivalent, "Awake" - 2 CD and no DVD - ; or some of the albums)

I came across this CD by chance . Just browsing through pages of cds , when i saw a collection . I thought "yeah right , another Best Of album" . But i looked into the tracklist and saw that the songs covered were not only the classic hit singles -- so to say . There were demo versions and unreleased tracks .

I ordered it and received it a few days later . For starters the packaging is excellent ! It is like an encyclopedia of Dead Can Dance . Hard cover with engraved lettering all around . Lyrics , pictures -- the works !

My biggest surprise was looking inside where i found 4 cds instead of 3 as listed on the back . Looking at the forth and final disk i noticed it did not say cd but DVD ! I was shocked to see that they had included the Towards the Within Live on DVD as well ! And all that for an incredible price !

What can i say but a big BRAVO to those who released this ! Good job and i hope more bands take this as an example release for their future collections .

I had two of their albums already. This one is by far the best. I don't like the packaging much though. It's in the form of a small hardback book. There are four discs; 3 CDs and the DVD of Toward the Within. The music is absolutely phenomenal. My coworkers asked me "What style is it?" There is no one specific style. It's a conglomeration of Medieval sounds, Arabian music, Indian music, light rock, and others.