Love is Colder Than Death - Holy Thursday

#Love Is Colder Than Death #darkwave #neoclassical #world music #ethereal #neo-medieval #1990s

It's hard to believe that Love Is Colder Than Death have been around as long as they have. Chronicling the years 1990 through 2005, "Time" is an expanded, updated version of their previous compilation album, "Auteur". The sleeve is laid out in a gatefold manner and the track listings wisely are divided along the lines of their more electro/classical works from their time on Hyperium Records being concentrated on the first disc and their newer more acoustically classical tracks being on the second disc. Smart move utilizing two tracks from their stunning 1995 maxi single "Spellbound" to bridge the gap. Photos abound of the band throughout the years from their first publicity shot right up to a recent look at the band at work on their new album.
For the first half of the 1990s, this band were in the vanguard of the neo-classical movement which came about for a number of reasons, the primary one being to create something new. Remember that everybody? My my, how times have changed. With their blend of sleek electronics and cathedral-esque vocalizations, LICTD were one of the most enigmatic and popular bands of the darkwave scene. "Mental Traveller", released in 1992 secured their place in the musical world as a darkly engaging outfit with a luminescence that was timeless. "Oxeia" came in 1994 and featured a band in transition, the dancefloor tracks were shoved to the end of the album, with the more inquisitive notions of found sound design coming to the fore.
This act vanished between the years 1995-98. They re-activated with 1999's "Atopos" which was more classical than ever and was devoid of any upbeat tunes whatsoever, due in large part to two new members joining the band. With the release of 2003's "Eclipse", original vocalist Susann Porter re-joined Love Is Colder Than Death and with the aid of the other long-standing member Sven Mertens, it triumphed with world influences and floor politics balanced. A live album, "Inside the Bell" followed shortly after.  From: https://www.releasemagazine.net/Onrecord/orloveiscolderthandeatht.htm

Emilie Autumn - Opheliac

 #Emilie Autumn #dark cabaret #electronica #industrial #classical #gothic folk rock #singer-songwriter

Emilie Autumn Liddell is a Gothic poet, singer / songwriter, violinist, harpsichordist, performance artist, feminist, and author. She's self described as that she sounds "like the best cup of English Breakfast spiked with cyanide and smashed on your antique wallpaper." Of Emilie's life, very little is known at the moment. What we do know is that she started playing violin at the age of four, a talent that she has continued to this day, and that she voluntarily stayed away from most of the mainstream music communities (both classical and commercial) due to bad experiences and clashes within them: In fact, most of her albums were self published by her own company. Her first album was On a Day - a classical album released in 2000, when she was 20 or 21. The following year she put out the Chambermaid and By the Sword EPs. In 2003 her first full vocal album was released: Enchant, an album filled with a number of songs inspired by fairy tales. Also contained in this CD was the Enchant Puzzle, which no one has ever solved. This was the Enchant era, when Emilie was a faerie.
After going through an extremely awful period in her life that resulted in a suicide attempt and hospitalisation, she was inspired to move in a different artistic direction. This began with the Opheliac EP, followed by the full album Opheliac. This album was far Darker and Edgier than Enchant, and a reflection of Emilie's mental state, as this album was released as an agreement with herself that she'd make the album instead of killing herself. The songs are mostly about madness and suicide, particularly in water. Much of the album is influenced by William Shakespeare, as is made obvious by the title. Many of the songs are not written from the perspective of Emilie, but from Ophelia herself, the Lady of Shalott, and others. Later in 2007, she re-released Enchant along with A Bit o' This & That, which was a collection of previously unheard songs, re-mixes, and tracks from older EPs. Also released that year was Laced / Unlaced. Laced was a re-release of On a Day... while Unlaced was an all-new collection of instrumental songs done in her newer style. In 2009 she was able to release her autobiography, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. She has also released The Opheliac Companion, which provides information and background about the songs on Opheliac. The Opheliac era is what Emilie is most well known for. And from gaining more muffins (fans), she was able to make more and more theatrical tours which gained more and more theatrics tour by tour. Joining her on stage in the Asylum are her Bloody Crumpets, a group of lovely mad girls.
In 2012 she released another album, Fight Like a Girl, which had been lingering in Development Hell for several years. Despite her initial promises that it was going to be "more metal" than Opheliac was, it ended up being a theatrical concept album based around the fictionalised Victorian story that appeared in The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. According to Emilie, she intends to use the album as part of the soundtrack to the play she's currently writing about the book. The album has created a Broken Base in the fandom because of its differences from the highly popular Opheliac and because the violin plays a much less significant role it in than it had in her previous music. Her current look and shows are generally referred to as the FLAG era by fans. She played the Painted Doll in The Devil's Carnival and its sequel Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival, musical films by the creators of Repo! The Genetic Opera, alongside two of her Crumpets, Captain Maggots and Contessa.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/EmilieAutumn

Rïcïnn - Doris

 #Rïcïnn #Laure Le Prunenec #neoclassical darkwave #art pop #avant-garde metal #baroque pop #experimental #gothic rock #French #animated music video

Laure Le Prunenec returns with another avant-garde masterpiece on her solo project Rïcïnn's sophomore album Nereïd, mixing classical influences with folk, electronics, and gothic sounds. Laure Le Prunenec is well-known for her work, among all those who enjoy the more experimental and avant-garde end of dark music. Her operatic vocal delivery on Igorrr, Öxxö Xööx, and Corpo-Mente has rightfully earned her a strong fan following, but what often flies under the radar is her solo work under the moniker of Rïcïnn – a captivating project, whose debut Lïan in 2016 put Le Prunenec’s vocals front and center, while bringing together bits of all the previously mentioned projects, to form a colossal masterpiece unlike any other. Four years later, Rïcïnn returns, taking a broader yet nuanced approach with a sophomore full-length – Nereïd. What made Rïcïnn‘s debut stand apart from her other projects is that it showcased Le Prunenec in her most expressive form, free from any restraints on style. Yet Lïan was just the first step of expression for Le Prunenec, whereas Nereïd sees her break all the shackles and soar high. The multiple layering of the vocals is more refined, and the vocal delivery has an even wider variety.  From: https://everythingisnoise.net/reviews/ricinn-nereid/

Dead Can Dance - Children Of The Sun

 #Dead Can Dance #Lisa Gerrard #Brendan Perry #neoclassical #darkwave #world music #ambient pop #art rock #avant garde #gothic rock #worldbeat #neo-medieval

Dead Can Dance have been included in a wide variety of musical subgenres within rock. Due to their name, image, and electronic-drum-driven ethereal sound, many defined the band as part of the dark, gothic style when they began to achieve notice in the early 1980s. Indeed, the media have called the work of Dead Can Dance everything from “world music” to “unclassifiable.” Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, the core of Dead Can Dance, have said their creations come from pure inspiration. “No two people ever make the same music naturally, not if they’re really honest with their music,” Perry told Ann Marie Aubin in Strobe. “What we try to do is draw very deep inside us, in regions that are normally connected with the subconscious - a willful immersion in trance-like states and improvisation, then bring down a whole gamut of influences we don’t really have conscious control over.” Perry and Gerrard met in 1980 in Melbourne, Australia. They decided to name their project Dead Can Dance after a ritual mask from New Guinea. “The mask, though once a living part of a tree, is dead,” Perry explained. “Nevertheless, it has, through the artistry of its maker, been imbued with a life force of its own.”  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/dead-can-dance 

Dead Can Dance combine elements of European folk music - particularly music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance - with ambient pop and worldbeat flourishes, touching on everything from Gaelic folk and Gregorian chant to avant-garde pop and darkwave. Originating in Australia, the group relocated to London in the early 1980s and signed with 4AD, for which they released a string of acclaimed albums, including the popular 1991 compilation A Passage in Time, which introduced the project's distinctive medieval art-pop to the United States before ceasing operations in 1998. They reunited in 2005 for a short tour, and officially re-formed in 2012 and issued their 12th studio LP, Anastasis, with Dionysus arriving six years later. Over the course of their career, Dead Can Dance have featured a multitude of members, but two musicians have remained at the core of the band - guitarist Brendan Perry and vocalist Lisa Gerrard. Perry had previously been the lead vocalist and bassist for the Australian-based punk band the Scavengers, a group that was never able to land a recording contract. In 1979, the band changed its name to the Marching Girls, but still wasn't able to get a contract. The following year, Perry left the group and began experimenting with electronic music, particularly tape loops and rhythms. In 1981, Perry formed Dead Can Dance with Lisa Gerrard, Paul Erikson, and Simon Monroe. By 1982, Perry and Gerrard decided to relocate to London; Erikson and Monroe decided to stay in Australia. Within a year, Dead Can Dance had signed a record deal with 4AD. In the spring of 1984, they released their eponymous debut album, comprised of songs the pair had written in the previous four years. By the end of the year, the group had contributed two tracks to It'll End in Tears, the first album by This Mortal Coil, and had released an EP called Garden of the Arcane Delights. In 1985, Dead Can Dance released their second album, Spleen and Ideal. The album helped build their European cult following, peaking at number two on the U.K. indie charts. For the next two years, Dead Can Dance were relatively quiet, releasing only two new songs in 1986, both which appeared on the 4AD compilation Lonely Is an Eyesore. Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, the group's third album, appeared in 1986. In 1988, the band released its fourth album, The Serpent's Egg, and wrote the score for the Agustí Villaronga film El Niño de la Luna, which also featured Lisa Gerrard in her acting debut.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dead-can-dance-mn0000225948/biography  

Gentle Giant - Just the Same

 #Gentle Giant #Shulman brothers #progressive rock #British prog #eclectic prog #classic prog #hard rock #experimental rock #jazz rock #neoclassical #medieval  #1970s #animated music video

Cool stuff in Gentle Giant songs

This is a listing of interesting musical and lyrical tricks and devices that Gentle Giant used on their albums. Some of them are obvious, while others require careful listening. These sorts of things make Gentle Giant's music so interesting to analyze.

Free Hand

During the verses of Just The Same, the bass and drums are playing in 6/4 while the piano, voice, and guitar are playing in 7/4.

The first section of On Reflection is a four-part vocal fugue. The last section is the same fugue played on instruments. In On Reflection, the last entrance of the band is accompanied by a springy wavering of the pitch (most noticeable in the electric guitar), which is likely the sound of the 24 track tape machine being dropped into "Vari Speed" mode, and the entire end section is transposed (sped up really) by a half step. Both the Studer and the Ampex tape machines, which were popular at the time of Free Hand, make this distinctive noise when you drop them into varispeed.

The bass part at the very beginning of Free Hand is repeated, in a different rhythm and tempo, when the "waltz" section begins (3:55 into the song). In fact, the whole waltz section contains various themes from earlier in the song.

The opening melody of On Reflection and the middle ballad section have almost identical melodies. Compare "In my way did I use you, do you think I really abused you" to "I remember the good things how can you forget."

The opening melody of Talybont is a heavily disguised reworking of the vocal melody of Just The Same. Talybont is a small hamlet in Wales near to where John Weathers lived. Talybont was recorded as the theme song for a movie about Robin Hood. The movie was never released, but it reportedly had "quite well known players in the movie business." If the movie had gone ahead, Gentle Giant would have recorded more material for it. Actually, some of that music did get recorded and appears on Under Construction.

The electronic sounds at the beginning of Time To Kill are from the old videogame, "Pong." And if you listen closely, you can hear one of the guys whisper "go" just before the loud buzz which indicates a goal scored.

The middle of His Last Voyage is a three-part vocal canon. The bass riff in the introduction of His Last Voyage fits over the very classic rock chord progression: I, bVII, bVI, V.

From: https://gentlegiantmusic.com/GG/Cool_stuff_in_Gentle_Giant_songs#Free_Hand

Gentle Giant were a British progressive rock band active between 1970 and 1980. The band were known for the complexity and sophistication of their music and for the varied musical skills of their members. All of the band members were multi-instrumentalists. Although not commercially successful, they did achieve a cult following. The band stated that their aim was to "expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular” although this stance was to alter significantly with time. Gentle Giant's music was considered complex even by progressive rock standards, drawing on a broad swathe of music including folk, soul, jazz, and classical music. Unlike many of their progressive rock contemporaries, their "classical" influences ranged beyond the Romantic and incorporated medieval, baroque, and modernist chamber music elements. The band also had a taste for broad themes for their lyrics, drawing inspiration not only from personal experiences but from philosophy and the works of Francois Rabelais and R. D. Laing.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentle_Giant

Sopor Aeternus - Sleep

 #Sopor Aeternus #Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows #Anna-Varney Cantodea #neoclassical #darkwave #dark folk #neo-medieval #neo-baroque #gothic rock #electronic #industrial #occult #performance art #music video

Officially founded in 1989, the German based Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows is one of the last of the very few dark groups/projects in Europe (in fact, on this planet), who have based the sacred trinity of their music, poetry and visual appearance on the explicit emphasis of the highly individual expression of pain, isolation, depression, token suicides and the desperate search for the “sacred reunion”; all conceived and acted out by Sopor’s sole protagonist - the transgendered and utterly beautiful Goddess (and likewise tragically Butoh-esque creature) Anna-Varney Cantodea. Perhaps best described as “introverted exhibitionism”, the holistic concept of Anna-Varney ‘s ritualistic/Jungian art is not necessarily rooted in the grounds of a commonly accepted sense of aesthetics - which is one of the many aspects that gives his/her work its serious and most unique character. Though the music playfully fuses elements of classical, baroque, medieval, and even electronic music, the essence of Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows always remains entirely “gothic”. Despite the fact that to this very day Anna-Varney still refuses to perform her magic(k)al work live in front of a human audience, Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows have long gathered cult status in underground circles worldwide. Strongly recommended to be approached only with an open heart and mind, the profound darkness (and occasionally subversive humour) of Anna-Varney ‘s multi-layered (yet fragile) art is mainly intended as a spiritual healing-process for the wounded soul.  From: https://www.season-of-mist.com/bands/sopor-aeternus/