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Spleen and Ideal [Re-Mastered] | ![Spleen and Ideal [Re-Mastered]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41urJfOpeWL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Artist: Dead Can Dance
Label: 4ad Records
Category: Music
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $13.98
You Save: $6.01 (30%)
New (24) Used (6) from $13.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 21857
Format: Hybrid Sacd, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 5.4 x 0.4
UPC: 652637270730
EAN: 0652637270730
ASIN: B0015YFOGU
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | De Profundis (Out Of The Depths Of Sorrow) | | • | Ascension | | • | Circumradiant Dawn | | • | The Cardinal Sin | | • | Mesmerism | | • | Enigma Of The Absolute | | • | Advent | | • | Avatar | | • | Indoctrination (A Design For Living) |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The primarily experimental structure of their second album, released in 1986, dispelled any notion that the band deserved the post-Gothic label slapped on them by the music press. "Spleen And Ideal" defined a new richness of unification between voice and music, lyrics and structure.
Album Description
SACD Hybrid Remastered CD of Spleen & Ideal, the second album recorded by Dead Can Dance, released in 1986. A rather etheral form of darkwave music, similar to the origins in their debut album, Dead Can Dance, and followed a more World music and Neoclassical oriented content, with lyrics based on the writings of Charles Baudelaire and Thomas de Quincey.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Dark, deep music for the ultra-patient September 8, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Often acclaimed as their best album, 1985's "Spleen and Ideal" (the title coming from Charles Baudelaire) saw Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry develop one of the most enchanting and unique sounds ever to be put before the modern music world.
Though there are traces of the drum machines found on their debut, otherwise the instrumentation of "Spleen and Ideal" is entirely acoustic and horns have a prominent part, so much so that often "Spleen and Ideal" reminds one of funk slowed down to 10 beats per minute. The key thing is that this slowness, whilst it makes the music have little content at first listen, actually adds to the emotion and makes Brendan Perry's voice - which could easily be used for awful soul-pop in the vein of Joe Cocker - sound really passionate and so deeply melodic that it really hits your heart just as much Lisa's siren-like wail that actually is on "Mesmerism" very close to Liz Fraser.
The real gems that make "Spleen and Ideal" a remarkable album, however, are the first three tracks. "De Profundis" even features Andrew Hutton as Boy soprano and the incomprehensible yet twinkling vocals of Lisa Gerrard really cry despair. "Circumradiant Dawn" shows Lisa singing with even more passion, whilst the mainly instrumental "Ascension" features some of the most powerful, gut-wrenching, soulful horns you will ever hear.
After this, "Spleen and Ideal" become a little less inaccessible, but its slow, soulful passion remains a taste very difficult to acquire. Perry's beautiful voice on "The Cardinal Sin", "Enigma of the Absolute" and "Advent" perfectly matches the despairing lyrics he was to perfect on their next album Within the Realm of a Dying Sun. "Mesmerism" reminds one of another mystical masterpiece released a mere few months previously in Kate Bush's Hounds of Love but is more gorgeous and sensual than Bush ever was. "Advent" is as near to pop as Dead Can Dance were ever to be, but it is not easy to imagine the lyrics Perry sings on commercial radio.
"Avatar" makes for further Kate Bush comparisons with its joyful, mystical mood, but Lisa's voice is incredibly entrancing when you listen carefully and more upfront than on any other Dead Can Dance piece. Closer "Indoctrination (A Design for Living)" is really sedate, dark, yet totally danceable and really shows to great effect how people doom themselves to loss of freedom in its lyrics.
All in all, "Spleen and Ideal" can seem nothing on first listen but it is a truly beautiful and emotional work if you - unlike most listeners - manage to acquire a taste for it. Alternately despairing and ecstatically joyful, it was the true beginning of one of the most unique bands of at least the part forty years.
Transitional....but still had a pulse... September 4, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
after SPLEEN they should have brought in the defibulators. I was stunned by the first DCD-it had DRIVE and LIFE to it-the dead WERE dancing-dark, complex Middle-Eastern (ME) tinged arrangements, sincere, intelligent lyrics, Lisa's amazing vocalizations-and her marvelous playing of the chinese stringed instrument-which seemed to vanish after SPLEEN pretty much -all seemingly custom made music just for me-I felt that music had died until their emergence (I still wish I knew the lyrics to OCEAN)
After this CD, with a few exceptions they became 'dead on Valium'. Too much slow, ponderous deep and profound preaching stuff-or else they became the resident musicians of the Smithsonian-sadly-then the new agers discovered them. OMG. This surprised me- as most of them seem to love YANNI-like corn syrup music...well, at least it benefited them personally-they didnt have to worry about rent money each month.
For what its worth I have all of the SACD albums-but I always come back to #1 and SPLEEN. ARCANE DELIGHTS has 2-3 great pieces on it, also. I am rather annoyed or perplexed they made it separate-it was on the previous incarnation CD as bonus tracks-and is now priced higher than the other full-on CDs!
Now this (SPLEEN) has some great tracks and excepting the rather bombastic kettle drum song (name i dont remember) I was still quite happy having found them. BUT
When DYING SUN came out, I felt alienated-except for CANTARA-lovely. They had moved on-too far on.
This was a nice mix-and I am not one to say they should do the same album over and over-but think they should have taken a vacation from brooding symphonies Period/Ethnic dabbling the deeply profound, and made an album with drive and LIFE to it-similar to the style of #1-but they would have incorporated- in the "rock" vein with all their newfound wealth-and gained experiences. They were EXCELLENT MUSICIANS-that cannot be denied, Brendons deep, sage like voice, came across as a very thoughfull, intelligent man at what-25? their ability to master musical styles and play instruments is nothing short of amazing
And Lisa's letting loose when she did was divine-until she joined the 'Sisterhood of the Sacred' Some of it is beautiful, but lacked spark. Dont get me wrong I LOVE them both and feel something unameable-but the first album made an imprint on me that summer which will not go away. OCEAN. WILD IN THE WORDS. FORTUNE. Still stun me. How can they not in their sparse economy move anyone?
DCD, Garden, and Spleen-then it was world/new age symphonic profoundness. Little drive-no more dance;
And you can examine the worlds problems and how to live properly so many times before it gets boring.
Thus 'World' and 'New Age' music are not my cup of tea-for the Spirolina set.
I listen to a lot of AZAM ALI, whose music has drive, mysticism and lyrics that dont preach-(or inform us 17 different ways of the miseries and short comings of living on Earth--a little of that goes a long way)-but she tells us of her experiences in life-and still sings of the positive. If you like the latter DCD you should try her PORTALS OF GRACE-a very brave and difficult acheivment from a woman who could have simply gotten by on her looks and singing Middle Eastern pop. She also part of a band called NYAZ- which play largely traditional ME motifs, with a few accomedations for electronics.
This review is all over the map, but I am locked out of DCD #1 by a previous review
As Ive already noted-the world is a richer place given that they are in it.
stonehenge-gate June 1, 2008
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
beautiful desolation bird in flight and no more ground nothing solid anymore like a waterfall of trash glistening in rays of sunshine celebrate the putrid stench bleeding on the inside the plaque of soul the shadow of the spirit like a tall steel ship grazing your chest and blaring its horn as it goes by in the dark spotlights blazing and bold, jerky women dressed in colorful rags spinning in circles and waving fetid, burning jars of black incense from the decks of the warships baring breasts at the dark complex waters and waterthings stirring violently at rest heat sucked out spines chilly and slippery
everything all tied together like paste at a molecular level the smallest part the biggest dream inflated and magnified and bending and rising and decompressing in the rotten waters, sucking on steel with an acid bath of mystery and enormity watching the fire burn right up your arm as if already detached as if arms are no different than the bracelets at their base and where does my energy go when i shut down when i shutter myself in here like a friendless villain and how does it come back?
my eyes are tactile investigators my reality branches out in so many directions and i can't explain it because i am not very convincing i have lost interest again flying with nowhere to ever ever land
 A transitional album -- and a good one April 14, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Made up of the duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance melded their own unique and changing sound from a variety of influences. Spleen and Ideal, Dead Can Dance's second full album, can be best seen as a transition from their 80s new wave/dark pop beginnings towards the more orchestral/operatic sound of their next album, Within The Realm of a Dying Sun. As such, it features some of the best of both these worlds.
The two opening tracks feature strings, horns, and spine-tingling vocal work from Lisa, conjuring up associations of medieval liturgy, classical dirges and dark opera, and on Enigma of the Absolute, Brendan sounds a bit like a goth Frank Sinatra, crooning mythically-tinged lyrics over a background of harpsichord, thundering tympani and pulsing string section. By contrast, his songs The Cardinal Sin and Advent utilize more standard drums and bass backing, and the combination of crashing 80s backbeat, wailing vocals and shimmering Yang Ch'in (Chinese hammer dulcimer) turn Lisa's track Avatar into a thrilling dark wave headbanger anthem.
If you think you may be interested in the group's early sound and/or their rich and distinctive middle period, this CD not a bad place to start your explorations.
Brendan Perry's brooding romanticism makes him the modern Lord Byron October 15, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This CD has a great mix of the voices of Brendan Perry with his masculine seductive baritone and that of Lisa Gerrard, whose voice reminds me of what ancient Greek and Roman priestesses must have sounded like as they chanted to the gods.
The instrumentation is very well done with African drums mixed with violin and cello for a mellow string sound. However the trombones are powerful and strategically placed and the timpani adds a sense of the Mediterranean.
Brendan Perry at times sounds brooding, romantic, and passionate like a contemporary Lord Bryon. His lyrics are usually more easy to understand that Lisa Gerrard whose voice is strongest when she evokes the Middle Eastern traditions.
The five strongest works on the CD are De Profundis, Ascension, The Cardinal Sin, Enigma of the Absolute, and Indoctrination.
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