Robin Guthrie and Brendan Perry

I first was introduced to Dead Can Dance in 1990 or 1991 they band had been in existence for three or four years.  A friend of mine was playing their latest album at the time while a group of our friends gathered at his place to go out.  We were struck by the distinctiveness of the sound and spirit of the band.  I went out soon after and found one of their albums.  I had recently turned 21 and was beginning to attend Goth clubs on occasion with my friend, hadn't yet self-identified as goth.  I have followed Dead Can Dance and Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard ever since.  I have been anxiously awaiting Perry's next Album just now being Released, Ark.

I love this track from it, Utopia.  Something about it makes me think of the Song of Songs, in that one can read and hear it as a love song and yet it also has an incredible multi-valence, opening up onto a quite large spiritual vista.

Just heard today this track from the album, Babylon:

I don't have a simlar experience with the Cocteau Twins.   Though I have loved this band for a very long time.  I haven't followed Robin Guthrie's or Elizabeth Frasier's solo careers as closely as Perry's or Gerrard's. I think I owend one album of thiers maybe two (my CD collection was stolen in 1999 shortly after moving to Chicago, I replaced much of the dead Can Dance, did not with the Cocteau Twins) Like much music in the realm of the goth subculture, Cocteau Twins were a band I heard at clubs, listened to at friends houses.  Both Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins for me create a  part of the ambiance and texture of what is goth, the ambiant, etherial and meditative aspects.  Though I suppose on a certain level neither band is goth as such.

Here is something from Robin Guthrie:


I am thinking about all this because tonight my wife is taking me for an early birthday gift to the Brendan Perry Robin Guthrie concert at the Merto.  I am very much looking foward to it.  Dj. Scary Lady Sarah is spin for the concert

Lastly here is Perry talking about his new Album Ark:

Brendan Perry - Ark

Brendan Perry | Myspace Music Videos