51 minutes, 9 seconds

Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance

It's worth noting that the 4AD label's roster back in the '80s, when this album was released, was incredibly diverse. Much more so, I think, than many other so-called indie labels, either back then or now. It's hard to even categorize Dead Can Dance's music, much less match it up with the driving alt-rock of the Pixies, the shimmering beauty of Cocteau Twins, or the warped soul music of Wolfgang Press and Colourbox. And how about the fusion-jazz of Dif Juz? Where does that fit in?

I suppose a lot of 4AD bands shared a kind of nervous postpunk energy, and you can certainly hear some of that on Dead Can Dance's first album, but the label's output in the '80s was really a reflection of Ivo Watts-Russell's varied tastes. Clearly, he heard something interesting in each of these bands, and even though they sounded almost nothing alike, it somehow felt right that they should be on the same label. Watts-Russell wasn't so much a label head as a curator, and 4AD in the '80s wasn't so much a label as an exhibit, a proposal for a new way of thinking about what popular music could be, both sonically and aesthetically.

I know the label is still active, but the '80s were really its salad days, and I always love going back to those recordings and cocooning myself in that world, those sounds. Different, yet together.

Also today:

51:09 Sol Invictus, The Angel
51:09 Stahlwerk 9, Oradour
51:08 Plastic Noise Experience, Transmitted Memory (CD 2 of 2)
51:07 Corvus Corax, Seikilos
51:02 Apoptose, Blutopfer
51:02 Vinterriket, Lichtschleier
51:02 VNV Nation, Empires
51:01 Faun, Renaissance
New arrival! 62:19 Apoptose, Schattenmädchen
New arrival! 56:06 Desiderii Marginis, Seven Sorrows
51:01 Love Spirals Downwards, Ardor
51:01 Schattenschlag, Gefühlskalt
50:59 Inure, Subversive
50:59 Rajna, Otherwise