Neo-Folk, Dark Folk - Politics & Recommendation Requests

I really like what I've head of Neo-Folk - it's often dark, Romantic, and has this yearning for times past, and often an interest in Neo-Pagan and Pagan revivalist themes, plus I've got an interest in traditional folk music and in other folk genres, and in Industrial music, as well as obviously Goth, and a lot of it Neo-Folk combines elements of these various musical types. As such, I'm trying to get into more of it. Currently my favourite band in the genre Of The Wand And The Moon - especially their songs that speak of the human condition like "The Lone Descent" - they are bleak in a beautiful way, heart-breaking and yet simultaneously glorious. I got into the genre via Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows - that's some music that really likes to draw from a variety of genres including elements from folk and classical/historical European music alongside a lot of electronic elements - although I'm not exactly sure what genre Sopor Aeternus would be categorised as. I also like songs like Dead Can Dance's 'Severance' or 'The Carnival Is Over' which don't fit neatly into genres, but seem to combine similar elements. 

However, there are a few Neo-Folk bands which like to romanticise the past and European traditions as part of rather right-wing forms of nationalism and an ethnic pride that are more or less racism and jingoism. This is quite similar to the issues that Heathenism and other forms of revivalist Neo-Paganism have had with fascist and racist elements co-opting their faith - obviously revivalist Neo-Paganism isn't inherently about any sort of racial superiority, and forms of ancestor worship and having pride and kinship with 'ancestors' in a more general sense of heritage does in no way mean inherently denigrating anybody else's ancestors, nor does it mean you have to embrace all of your own predecessors and ancestors actions as morally right, but despite this, there are those who wish to use it as religion for their 'ethnic purity'. I guess because there is a lot of overlap between revivalist Neo-Paganism and Neo-Folk, and plenty of historical retrospective yearning in both, there's this pernicious element that are not really interested in culture and heritage for its own sake, but only as the underpinnings for a hateful ideology. There's a huge difference between being proud of our cultural achievements and thinking we're inherently 'better' as a culture than others - also history tells of a lot of atrocities, and every culture has blood in its past. 

Another issue across all dark genres are those bands that like to co-opt Nazi imagery for shock-value nonsense; something I think is distasteful and creatively bankrupt; it's been done to death and in a world where actual far-right politics seem on the rise, is too easily seen as an endorsement of those politics - both by supporters and detractors of such ideologies. I also generally think that if you have to rely on shock value to get attention, then whatever it is your trying to garner that attention for can't be that interesting. Unless you're actually trying to create some kind of commentary on fascism, or authoritarianism or suchlike, or allude to that being something's nature, then that sort of imagery generally seems fairly irrelevant - and even then, it can seem quite heavy-handed (for a pop-culture science-fiction example, General Hux's address of the First Order troops and the pageantry around it was quite obviously based off the Nuremberg Rally - very much painting them as 'space Nazis') 

Unfortunately, it seems that you can't get away from articles about fascist elements in Neo-Folk, about people wary of far-right influences, etc. Here I am, writing another one! I guess some of it is from fans of the genre wanting to dissociate themselves from bands with blatant fascist, Neo-Nazi and far-right messages, and others are people who are very concerned with this element in the culture surrounding the genre - especially when it's quite antithetical to the politics of a lot of other members of the subculture, and therefore there will be quite the clash. However, it's got me rather nervous about the genre as a whole, despite the parts of it I clearly enjoy. In exploring the genre, I get worried that I will unwittingly be enjoying a song that's actually supporting something horrific in veiled terms, or that the song I might be listening to might be about something completely separate from all that, but that the same band might have other songs that are clearly about something more sinister. 

It's a genre I'm not very acquainted with, where I don't know much about the bands, their members and ideologies, or the broader catalogues of musicians. I have Spotify and a handful of recommendations, but really I want to hear from people who know the genre well and can steer me clear of bands with distasteful political messages, but towards bands that blend Romanticism and cynicism,  have haunting atmospherics and blend acoustic folk and classical elements with industrial, Goth and electronic elements. I'm especially interested in music with Neo-Pagan themes (being one myself), and references to English, Scottish, Welsh, Breton and Irish mythologies and folklore.

As such, I would really like to hear suggestions for music like this! I'd love to hear comments about the problem/issue of Neo-Nazi influence on dark subcultures and genres as well as music recommendations, to. 

How I Came To Realise I Was Goth

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is "How did you become a Goth?", but I don't think I became anything, I think I just followed the road marked out by the things I like.

I think my preferences happen to align with the Goth subculture in many ways, but when I decided "I am going to be Goth" it was not really with any understanding of what Goth was, and what I became was a pretentiously 'rebelious' teen for a few months, and then over the next few years discovered more and more of how this subculture I had chosen for all the wrong reasons was actually home for all the right reasons. Usually, when I am asked this, I have to either explain in conversation, or at best get a paragraph or two to write - I wanted to write out the story of this chapter in my life a bit more fully. I've written thousands of words here, I know, but even that has not touched on everything.  

One of the things I have written about in the past was ::this article:: on how Church music, and spending a lot of my childhood in various ecclesiastical buildings has influenced me. I looked at these incredible structures towering over my head, lit by the sun shining through stained glass, interiors often painted white or beautifully decorated with murals, filled with richly carved wooden furniture, the music of the choir and the sound of pipe organs, and to me this was the closest to Heaven you could find in the human world - I always felt the wild was the closest you could get to Heaven while still alive, as far away from the rest of the human race as possible, but the beauty I experienced in church made a close second. I rarely felt spiritually connected by church services, but I felt something close in singing old polyphonic choral songs with the choir, when the harmonies rang out just right and summoned a glimpse of something holy and glorious. If Heaven had cities, in my imagination, they were entirely built of medieval Gothic architecture, like the illustrations in old manuscripts of white shining cities of spires and towers, and filled with music of angels singing. I was never entirely sure there actually was a Heaven or a Hell, but I liked to imagine that there might be, just so there could be somewhere perfect and untainted.

It was never cool amongst those I encountered to have this sort of imagination, especially as a child, not even a teenager. It wasn't something I could share with other children - even my more religious peers seemed to think there was something a bit dorky or strange about my feelings, and very few seemed to have any sort of personal religious experiences. I was starting to have more and more of those sorts of experiences... but outside of Church and the framework of Christianity (but this would diverge into the territory of "how I became Pagan"). 

I definitely became aware at quite an early age that my reaction to this sort of thing was unusual, and as my peers became teenagers, and my spirituality diverge further from Christianity, I felt quite isolated and unique (in a bad way) in my reaction. I don't think I actually am unique, just that during that point in my life, there was nobody I knew who seemed to have the same reaction, to feel the same way and as strongly. Perhaps they did, but those people were probably adults and felt uncomfortable talking to a small child about these sorts of things, or perhaps other children who felt like this had the social understanding to realise that speaking up about these sorts of things wasn't considered normal. I seemed to see jewels in the pictorial windows where others only saw painted glass, and the glory of the Divine glittering in the candle light where others just saw fire, and heard the voices of angels echoed in the practice of the parish church choir where other people just heard accidental dischords and humble harmonies.

This difference between how I felt about Church was one of the many things that taught me the bad habit of not talking about what made me happy because it would often just be something else that set me apart and probably get me into trouble. Being able to openly talk about what I enjoy is probably the greatest blessing of the Gothic subculture. I have this blog, I am a member of online communities, I have Goth and Goth-friendly friends, and I can actually rejoice and talk at length about what I love, openly, freely and with enthusaism, knowing that others feel the way I do about these things and share that passion and interest. 

I didn't feel any connection to the Christian concept of God, but I could see there was something genuinely Divine in truly spiritual art, and the first spiritual art I came across came from a Catholic and Church of England context, so I wasn't aware yet that I would feel the same when I came across Buddhist chants, statuary and artwork, or that I would feel completely humbled by the sky at Stonehenge rather than the stones themselves. I guess in some ways this sort of strong emotional connection to the art, architecture and music of medieval to Victorian Britain and Europe gave me a direct connection to the Gothic in the art historical and literary meanings of the word.

When I was at primary school and the other girls in my class started caring about being pretty and fashionable (or at least wearing the kinds of clothes popular with other girls their own age, rather than fashionable in terms of what grown women would have considered fashionable in the mid 1990s), I was more interested in wearing tomboy clothes and my big black duffle-coat, and a bit later, when I tried experimenting with make-up, I decided I wanted to look scary rather than pretty and drew my eyebrows in arched and pointed, and painted my lips deep red; when other girls wanted to be a Spice Girl, I wanted to be Morticia Addams. Later, in my early teens, I decided that purple and black eye-makeup like a tonally-shifted Cleopatra was what I wanted - not a long distance from the Siouxsie-esque dramatic make-up of Trad-Goths! I think this is when I started to realise that a) what I cared about in regards to my appearance was not really in line with what most other people cared about or thought was the "right" way to look and b) that not looking "normal" was going to get me bullied even more.

For a while after I started boarding school, I decided that as it was a clean start that I would at least try and look normal and fashionable, but I could never quite get the look done 'right'. Like the rest of my attempts to pass as normal and give the impression of normalcy in order to try and fit in, it just added to my fears and anxiety, and left me feeling constantly worried about when I would be "found out" as a "weirdo" and "freak" - something that came about soon enough. My feigned interests in popular culture was always caught out as faked when I just didn't have the shared cultural knowledge base of those genuinely interested, when I couldn't pretend to be enthusiastic convincingly enough, when I made a constant stream of little faux-pas, when I accidentally let slip my genuine interests... 

I eventually gave up the pretence for the sake of my sanity, and it was at this point I used my mistaken idea of Goth and attemptedly Gothic fashion choices as a way to signal that yes I was a "weirdo", a "freak" and "creepy", but that I was PROUD to be those things, and that maybe those who had been bullying me and ostracising me ought to be a bit afraid - of course, with my attempts at Goth being so poorly executed, I think I managed to be more pathetic than intimidating, but at least I felt confident at the time, which is more than I had ever been before. I would imagine that this last paragraph resonates with quite a few of my readers, as this seems to be quite a common experience amongst Goths and other Alternative lifestyle folk.

Of course, I was not really a Goth at that point, or really part of Gothic culture - I had grasped onto something through which I felt I could resist the pressures around me - both by rebelliously trying to appear as the antithesis of what was expected of me and the opposite of what those around me lauded as good and proper, and by doing something that felt very freeing, as I decided to shed all that was conventional and desired of me, and do something outrageous, something that meant I would never again have to pretend to be "normal" by the very narrow standards of those around me. This initial "Goth" phase was short lived, but I had thrown off my shackles through it, and it started me on the path to actually becoming a Goth. 

After that point, I became more interested in actually Gothic things - I had always loved science fiction and fantasy, and had already a tendency towards liking the darker parts of what I'd had access to - the latter Harry Potter books had plenty of rather Gothic themes in them, and out of all the strands in those books, these were probably the aspects I had liked most, and I had loved books like Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. I loved the worlds these authors had crafted, full of magic, Gothic architecture, monsters, villains and people who had to accept that their world wasn't perfect and good, just as ours is not perfect and good, and as I became a teenager and started reading more books aimed at adults, I looked towards more books that would satiate this. I began with Michael Moorcock's Elric novels, with the sadistic Melniboneans, the strange and beautiful worlds, the cursed sword and other elements that while still High Fantasy of an almost surreal nature, were definitely erring towards the darker and more bloody. 

I then got into vampires and started reading the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice and their lavishly described dances through time and place as the long and fascinating lives of her vampires were recounted just drew me in - even her latter novels, which I now recognise as not necessarily being her best, drew me in as a teenage fangirl. I wanted to live life for the experience, travel the world, and have grand adventures, and long centuries to do so, like one of her vampires, and of course, have some torrid romance with a beautiful creature of the night (oh, how foolish of me!). I was also reading comics at this point, especially things from the Gotham world by DC and also Witchblade, which I initially thought horribly violent, and then thought was actually pretty cool. 

I didn't deliberately choose my reading by "what is Gothic", otherwise I would have probably read far more vampire books at that point! I just read what I found interesting, what fed my imagination, what transported me to worlds far away from the life I currently had, from my depression, from my isolation, from everything that made me unhappy. It was escapism, but at least it was imaginative escapism full of creativity and full of themes that introduced me to stuff that I probably would not otherwise have found to be interesting. I tended towards more traditional high fantasy when miserable, and then darker fantasy when I was more cheerful and thus not liable to end up morose from reading too many novels full of sadness and tragedy. 

Whether it was books (which I read a lot of), comics (which I read a few of), films (which I was rarely able to see), video games (which I think is an anachronistic term, and which I only got to play at friend's houses as we were too poor for such things) or TV (which I hardly watched), the themes, characters, imagery and setting I kept being drawn to was what I would later come to identify as the Gothic in the literary meaning of the term. I don't think that it was that these things influenced me to like more and darker things, it is that I seemed to like dark things anyway and went in search of them; these things connected with me on some inner level. 

Gothic novels are so named after the architecture that often serves as the setting, and which is often a part of the plot, or even almost a 'character' itself (I think of the the great citadel-castle of Gormenghast, for example), and that itself stirred a chord, reminding me of all the cathedrals, churches and castles that I loved (and still love, as a quick look through the 'architecture' tag in the sidebar will show!) and I felt at home there, even if these versions were haunted by monsters and ghosts. A lot of the time, in my social alienation, I felt like I might be the monster doing the haunting, not quite human, never truly acceptable. A bit melodramatic, I know, but as a teenager I think I was prone to melodrama. 

Often times, the horror of the Gothic is brought about through an atmosphere of menace, of the anticipation that something horrible is coming - and that tension drew me in. I felt like the world was closing in on me in real life, and to have fictional characters survive more terrible (and often more supernatural) terrors and live in dread of what was to come was something I could identify with, and as the good overcame the evil through personal strength, I hoped maybe I could overcome the things that were troubling me. I still struggle with anxiety issues, and, often feel like everything in my life is about to go wrong, like I am always on the brink of the next disaster (perhaps because I have gone through so many things that have severely impacted my life in a negative way, and I find it hard to believe that any respite from that is anything but temporary, even after years have passed) and as such, that ominous atmosphere was something that seemed familiar, but at the same time was distanced enough through fantasy to be safe, manageable. 

A lot of Gothic novels address the supernatural, some more realistically than others. Most opt for terrible monsters that are quite fantastical (for example, the traditional werewolves, vampires and zombies), but others are stories of magic, ghosts, spirits, and curses - things that I have experienced in the real world, perhaps not always as they are written about in fiction, but they certainly  seem very real and very much a part of our world. I am, after all, basically a witch (even if I'm not overly fond of that word). I have been having supernatural (or praeternatural) experiences since I was a child, and while modern society in Britain is often very secular, atheist and disbelieving when it comes to such occurrences, I have had too many strange things happen to me to claim they do not exist. I guess some people might think me credulous, gullible or perhaps mentally ill for those experiences, or decide that they are a subconscious expression of childhood trauma or something, but as far as I am concerned, they are as real as any ordinary thing. I am not afraid of them, nor think that experiencing them makes me special, they are just another part of the world, alongside more mundane things like trees or cars or toasters. Reading fiction that actually addressed these things, written sometimes by people whose accuracy in what they present compared to what I have experienced, and what I know about things like the occult and witchcraft lend me to believe that the authors have experienced something similar, let me feel a little less alone. Anyone who has seen The Sixth Sense knows that you can't just tell people that you see ghosts! 

(Nobody can talk of why ghost stories are still relevant quite like Neil Gaiman in ::this:: article for the New York Times)

While ghost stories and vampire novels were giving me an introduction to the Gothic in literature, and to contemporary horror writing, I was still not that much of a Goth yet, and my musical tastes were rather eclectic and I didn't encounter Gothic rock of the post-punk, darkwave, French coldwave and similar varieties until my late teens. The first music that really stirred me, from outside of classical and ecclesiastical music, was the prog rock, folk rock and psychedelia my Dad would occasionally play in the car. I was brought up with Joni Mitchell, Yes (I have my own Yes compilation CD set...) The Moody Blues (before they went commercial), Jefferson Airplane, The Strawbs, Spyrogyra, etc. etc. There are songs from that era that spoke to me, and which I still adore - especially Moody Blues songs about the emptiness of space, the vastness of the universe, melancholia and the transience of life. A turning point was when I heard Melancholy Man by the Moody Blues for the first time, when it goes into the second section, with booming synthesised organ, wailing chorus and dirging guitars - I was transfixed. A song had grabbed hold of something in a way that had not happened since the soaring descant in Allegri's Miserere in church, but this time I felt like a song was singing about someone I could empathise with. I felt like the outsider, who could not see the world like others do, and in my minds eye I was watching something halfway between the rapture and a science-fiction apocalypse as they sang... Sure, it certainly was not Goth rock, and it wasn't even the symphonic metal I started with when it came to attempting 'being a Goth', but it is that same sort of reaction to a song that I have sought after ever since. 

The next song to really change my musical perspective was Severance by Dead Can Dance. I wasn't really into any form of Goth music yet at the point where I encountered Dead Can Dance; I found a CD of theirs that looked atmospheric in the school's archive of music for theatrical performances while working on a production of The Crucible by Arthur Miller (a play about the Salem witch trials, and a metaphor for the McCarthy-era 'witch-hunt' for possible communists). The CD was 'The Serpent's Egg' and the cover and name looked a bit spooky and witchy, so I stuck it in CD player and had a listen. I'd struck shuffle instead of repeat by accident, and I think the second song I heard was Severance - again, I got transfixed by music, my head filled with visions of wide and open spaces, leaden skies, and a solitary tree with its last leaves caught on the wind, birds flying in migration formation high above me... Dead Can Dance became my new favourite band, but I didn't know how they fitted into a musical context, or what bands might be similar, so I unfortunately did not end up getting into Goth via Dead Can Dance as an entry point. 

A few years later I did finally encounter proper Goth rock - in the intermediary years  I did however get into symphonic metal (Nightwish, Within Temptation, etc.) and the kind of music that got labeled 'Goth' by mainstream media that doesn't understand what Goth is (Marilyn Manson, Evanescence, Rammstein).  While I was doing music in my late teens, my teacher/lecturer (I was studying at the local community college) a very classically minded and trained fellow, was also a bit of an ex-punk and knew quite a bit about various rock genres. I think he got a bit fed up with my ignorance on Goth, so when we had to write about an album that marked a changing point in music history, he encouraged me to pick something out of Goth rock history... I ended up listening to a big chunk of the back catalogue of the big-name 'original Goth bands' (Siouxsie Sioux, Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus, etc.) and was torn between writing about Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division and Press The Eject And Give Me Tape by Bauhaus... so wrote about JuJu by Siouxsie and the Banshees as I felt it was their first really Gothic album (I tried arguing that in my essay, and now when I look back on it, I'm not sure I was right - but we go to school to learn, right?). I fell in love with this genre of music I hadn't really explored before and I think finally became a proper Goth that understood what Goth actually was, where it came from, and learnt about what the subculture was like beyond the other babybats I had encountered so far. JuJu ended up the first album I bought on vinyl, and my fashion, which went through phases of experimentation with other subculturally affiliated styles but had returned to mostly Goth, fixed itself firmly in black, and my love for all things both Goth and Gothic just grew. 

About a year later I went to a Goth club for the first time, and I started mixing with the Goth scene outside of people who went to college with me or school with me in the past, and suddenly met all these wonderful people and was making new friends - actually making lots of friends rather than having only a small handful of people I talked to. I had a proper social life, I had a community I was part of, and I think I realised that this was where I belonged, and I have never looked back. 

Music That Inspires: Choral Music

This is such a broad topic! I've found it very hard to narrow it down to one aspect for this blog, as music is something that permeates my life. Back when my I still had headphones for my iPod, it was something that was pretty much a constant in my life. I studied it up to A Level and play several instruments, and I sing. When I am particularly strapped for cash, I perform as a street musician (a busker) in Inverness with my recorders  and I am very glad to have a talent (turned into something useful by all the hard work and music lessons and the 6hr-a-day practice schedule when I was a teen) that can earn my keep if necessary. 

I also have milder synaesthesia, and for me sounds tend to be accompanied by colours and 'textures' (I 'see' a lot of it as solidified light almost like glass) to the point where when I am composing, I tend to pick things that look good when I shut my eyes, because they invariably sound good too, and even wrote up an entire chart of chords by colours and what they invoke imaginatively to help me in my compositions. 

I didn't want to write about my tastes in stuff like Goth, Darkwave and French Coldwave because I'm pretty sure I've covered various aspects of that on my blog already. Beyond Goth, my tastes in music are quite broad. I thought I would focus on an aspect of my musical life that has inspired me as a Goth while being quite removed from Goth itself. 

I like early ecclesiastical sacred choral works from a variety of traditions, not limited to but including many things from Gregorian chant to Renaissance polyphony, to modern works such as those of John Taverner and Karl Jenkins. 

When I was younger and somewhere between my Christian roots and my Pagan faith, I was rather active in various church choirs and I have been singing from a very young age. I sang in both church choirs and school choirs, but as many of the schools I went to (I moved a lot) were Christian, I still sang mostly sacred music. I have not attended Church for worship service in years, and do not intend to as I am thoroughly Pagan now, but I still attend the occasional concert of sacred music.  Choir holds almost all positive memories for me. I got to a relatively high standard and ended up singing some challenging music in some really beautiful places. 

While the religious content was not always in alignment with my personal faith (and as I grew older, I grew further away from Christianity) there was something about it that connected with me on a very profound and spiritual way. I think there is definitely something spiritually powerful about religious singing, as an act of worship and an act of faith in itself rather than as simply a celebration thereof. There is a lot in the Bible about music, from David's lyre, to the songs of Solomon, to the angels who sing eternal praises in Heaven, and while this is heading off on a tangent that probably deserves its own post, I certainly think that Christianity and other religions that use sacred song (I have some CDs of Buddhist singing, from a period when I was interested in becoming Buddhist), and they have something very precious and definitely inspiring. A few years ago I tried writing some Pagan songs in a similar choral style, but suffered from a lack of people to sing them (I experimented with multi-tracking myself, but it come out very strange!) and so that project was put into indefinite stasis. 

The heavens my imagination transports me to might not be the one I envisioned when I believed in an afterlife in Paradise, but the music still has the power to supremely move me. It also always reminds me of the glorious Gothic architecture of the Chapels, Churches and Cathedrals I have attended for various things from Royal School of Church Music summer-schools at Magdalene College Chapel in Oxford (a building that is truly glorious) to St. Mary's Church on the bridge in Henley-on-Thames with it's Morris-esque murals and beautiful stained glass, to Peterborough Cathedral (which is Gothic on a truly vast scale!) and thus whenever I hear certain pieces I think of certain places and events.

It should be relatively apparent that historic architecture, especially that in the Gothic style, is something that I am really passionate about. With early Gothic literature, the term came about because of the use of settings, and how a lot of those settings were the sorts of buildings I love. To me, I cannot easily separate my experience of those buildings from the music performed in them, the music I performed in them as part of a choir. 

I have a specific fondness for requiems (how stereotypically Gothic of me!) especially the later ones. Later requiems were written more as concert pieces than to be sung at requiem masses, but they are still based around religious texts and sentiments, and as such I'd like to mention a few here. Fauré's requiem with its serene , and is also one of my favourites, then Verdi's with its furious Dies Irae, and Mozart's as well (and the wonderfully Gothic story written about it for the film Amadeus! It's not true, and Sallieri was not driven by obsessive jealousy to murder Mozart by working him to death, but it's a very good story!). I also like Vittoria's 'Missa Pro Defunctis" and "Officium Defunctorum" - his "mass for the dead" and "offices for the dead", the latter of which I heard sung by The Sixteen back in 2006 in Reading. It was  one of those moments when, despite struggling with depression at the time, I managed to unlock the glass box it felt my head was in, and be lost in the music rather than my own thoughts. 

Choral music of various Christian traditions has inspired both my own musical life as a choral singer (I even ran a choir at the school I work at until my chronic illness made in untenable) and also as an artist and poet and photographer as glorious music mixes with beautiful colour and light in a synaesthesic mix in my head, and always evokes a sense of wonder, sacredness and a belief that there is a Divine and glorious presence in the universe, even if to me the heavens are the literal heavens of space full of stars, nebulae and very real glorious light, and to me, a pantheist, the Divine is inherently manifest through reality. When I shut my eyes and sit on the bare earth and feel the boundaries between what is me and what is everything else dissolve and meditate, there's a similar sense of awesome, brilliant, glorious something that I touched when I was singing psalms, evensongs, hymns, masses and oratorios. 

My Musical Pick
There is some overlap with my tastes in more Goth music; some of my favourite pieces by Dead Can Dance are the ones where multi-tracking has been used to create a choral effect, but the songs they sing have words of Lisa Gerrard's glossolalia rather the Latin texts various masses and offices. I think that same sense of light and glory that is forever intangible that I got when listening to choral concerts in Oxford collegiate chapels and grand Gothic cathedrals is what inspired Host of The Seraphim with its vocals that seem to soar ever upwards in plaintive chant over a very minimal (electric?) organ and distant strings. It reminds me of how psalms are traditionally sung with the chords changing according to the text, rather than the text made to fit the melody (think Alleghri's 'Miserere mei, Deus'). To me, Host of the Seraphim is like watching angels come and go, filing past out of view and into nothing but beautiful light. 

What Does Goth Mean To Me

Goth has been my sanctuary, my bridge connecting me to others, and is something I love being a part of. 

I've already written a post about how I define Goth ::here:: - this isn't about that, this is about how Goth has been a positive influence on my life, and why I love being part of the subculture. I'm posting this today as today is World Goth Day which seems like the perfect day for an article like this. One of my friends on FaceBook asked me this question, and I think it's a really good one, but also one I can answer in quite a bit of depth. Be warned: wordiness ahead!

One thing that is probably obvious is that I am hugely passionate about the Goth subculture and the broader Gothic aesthetic. I run this blog, run one group and participate in several online communities, organise tea parties within the local scene, try to attended every event in a four-hour travel radius (and fail when I need to be in three places at once) and am working on a Secret Gothic Plan (or three) that I will only unveil when complete. I dress Goth every day - even my work clothes have a Goth or Gothic edge even if it's very toned down - and everything from my home decor to my work-out music has been touched by the Gothic aesthetic whether musically or visually or whatnot. I'm currently burning some incense called "Vampire's Blood" so my apartment even smells Gothic! :P  Most of my interests are dark, macabre or somehow tie in with the subculture. I am pretty much a "lifestyle" Goth, down to graveyard picnics and structuring holidays around what ruined castles I can visit.

I don't think this makes me a better Goth than someone that only participates in a few online groups, or only listens to Goth music sometimes, or doesn't get to dress Goth most of the time - just one with more opportunities to express myself, and perhaps a slightly more enthusiastic one. 

Goth means an awful lot to me for a lot of reasons. I am passionate about my subculture because I am driven to give back to an entity to which I feel indebted for how it has bettered and enriched my existence. 

The subculture has been the first group into which I feel I have been accepted. Within the Goth subculture I have found other people with similar interests to me, and people who are very accepting of differences too. I have found people who genuinely understand me. In Goth I have found a group who rather than being freaked out by my "creepy" interests or laughing at my "outdated" tastes in music, or prejudiced against my "occult" spirituality accept these things and actually think such things are interesting too. Other Goths will have actual conversations about the history and social context of vampire mythology or about how the style of architecture termed as "Gothic" is actually an umbrella for quite a few stylistic variances and centuries of building, or even something like whether Patricia Morrison or Siouxsie Sioux had the cooler hair!

For reasons I would rather not go into on my public blog, I have always had trouble with socialising and being "normal" in many ways, and I have my quirks in terms of personality and in terms of how I think and am, and whereas many mainstream people treat me like I am stupid or insane for my innate eccentricities, within the Goth subculture people have been far more accommodating and accepting of how I am different. Within the Goth subculture I have finally felt like I am no longer an outcast - and as someone who was severely bullied and ostracised by their peers through out their school years, that meant a the whole world to me as a teen when I was first getting into the scene.

Spotting another Goth is a good way of spotting someone I will probably have at least one thing in common with beyond simply being in the same place, and while not all Goths have the same interests or compatible personalities, it has been a good way for me to find like-minded individuals, many of whom have become very good friends indeed. I am also not the best at striking up conversations, least of all with strangers, and it has been a blessing in making it easier for me to actually talk to someone, knowing that they probably won't freak out at how I look and probably has a few things in common with. It can't magically improve my social skills, but it does improve my confidence. 

I have made so many good friends within the subculture - I'm sure most of my best friends I met either at Goth events or through just bumping into someone with a similar dress sense and getting chatting. Many of the friends I made at college and school are folk who were good friends while we were studying together, but we left we have drifted apart. I'm still friends with my Goth friends from England even since crossing the border, and some of my Internet-based friendships are across thousands of miles with people I will probably never be able to afford to meet -in Canada, America and Australia- but we're still good friends. 

I also owe meeting Raven in part to my Goth and Gothic interests - one of the things that brought me and Kate B together was a mutual fondness for the dark, creepy and Gothic (even though we initially met through mutual geekdom) and if I had not become friends with her, she would never have introduced me to Raven, who himself is partly Goth (although mostly a Metalhead and Industrial fan - I'm a firm believer that you can be fan of more than one genre at once, and certainly participate in several related subcultures) and I'm sure that sharing a love of the macabre has strengthened our relationship - we go clubbing together, we watch supernatural and Gothic horror movies together, we borrow each others' black nail polish and half the time I'm wearing either one of his coats or something, and he appreciates being given the darkest roses I can find, or a resin skull to decorate his side table, or whatnot. 

Goth is something I got into as a very troubled teen going through a lot of confusing and painful experiences. It gave me a subculture in which I could find sanctuary and acceptance, and helped me forge an outlook on life that sees the beauty in the darkness, and has helped me to see times of suffering as something to learn from and transform into creative out-put rather than as something to overwhelm me. Since then my circumstances have much improved, and like most people, I have come to know myself better and have resolved things like figuring out my sexuality, knowing what I want to do in life, dealing with the complex issues within my family and accepting a lot of who I am. I no longer have the same worries, the same problems with bullying and boarding school, the same problems at home, the same mental health problems, etc. so I don't need that safe haven as much as I once did, but I am glad that it has always been there for me. 

Within Goth it is more acceptable to acknowledge and express the darker emotions, and the response I got was mostly supportive. Certainly there were those who dismissed me as a histrionic teen full of melodramatic angst, but for the most part people were non-judgemental and prepared to listen. People outside the subculture often say that Goth is depressing, but I think it contributed in improving my mental health and making me a generally happier person. I still struggle with depression, and it is probably something that will recur throughout my life, but I am by no means in as dark and horrible mental place as I was as a teenager and have not had any episodes as dark as that in the years between then and now. 

One of the central themes of much Goth and Gothic art is acknowledging the darkness and facing what lies within it rather than running away. I think that attitude, both to my personal problems and to life itself, has really helped me be a more grounded person. Life has its troubles and strife, but trying very hard to push it all away eventually becomes counter-productive, and problems are best solved by facing them. Reality may often suck, but it is the only reality we have, and to best cope with it and to best see its brilliance as well as what it can inflict on us, we have to appreciate it in its entirety. 

Goth also helped me out of that very dark time by showing me replacements to the thoroughly dysfunctional methods I used to try and keep my inner turmoil at bay. The two most prominent things I can think of are almost teenage angsty Goth stereotypes, but I can honestly say they actually helped. 

I learnt to use my (very badly written) poetry as a vent rather than keep things pent up - it was work I would never share, and certainly had little literary merit, but the act of trying to express myself through words and metaphor helped me to better understand my own emotions and think about whatever problem was at hand in a less anxiety producing way. In writing plenty of bad poems, and reading plenty of good ones, I also slowly learnt to write better poetry and to write poetry for more than just to vent emotions. I was not trying to be as dark as possible, or write genre poems, I was just trying to turn the complex mess of emotions and thoughts in my head into something more concrete and understandable, and it worked. 

Much of the music I listened to was very helpful, too, even if that is a complete cliche and even if my first 'dark' bands and music was not actually Goth, just often thought of as Goth by those who do not know it as a musical genre, like Marilyn Manson, Evanescence and Nightwish. It meant something to me that other people felt their own pains and wrote songs about it, rather than hiding it and pretending to be happy, and while those musicians are often dismissed as the stuff for babybats or just plain not part of the subculture, they're part of my history of becoming Goth, and they are something that really helped me get through some tough times, and inspired me to write my own songs - another creative process that helped untangle the chaos. Since then I fell in love with actual Goth, Post-Punk and Darkwave stuff (and a good bit of French Coldwave) as my regular readers will know. 

I believe that my life would have taken a much more negative path out of my teens if I had not become a Goth, and for that I feel hugely grateful that the subculture exists and that all those good people were within it. Goth has also been a useful umbrella for all the interests that draw me in - I am sure I would still love vampires, historical architecture, macabre artwork and suchlike if the music scene of the late '70s and early '80s had not coalesced into the subculture we know today, but the subculture's existence has given me a framework for those interests, and an easy way of finding those that share them. I have discovered so many things that I have come to love through the subculture, and met so many brilliant, accepting and supportive people. Goth changed my life for the better. Yes, humans are inherently variable and my experience has not been a completely good one, but I feel that the overall contribution has been vastly positive. Some people grow out of the subculture, but over the last decade or more I have grown into it, and long may I continue to be part of it. 

World Goth Day website is ::here:: and all the W.G.D. artwork and graphics were produced by DJ Cruel Britannia and are available to share to promote W.G.D on their website. 

Is Gothic Lolita a type of Goth?

This is a question I saw posted in the Lolita Fashion Mentoring group on FaceBook.  Here's my take on it as a Goth. 

Short answer: no.  Long answer: sort of...

Gothic Lolita is one of the older subsets of Lolita and is a fashion that applies the Gothic aesthetic to the Lolita template. 

As a fashion, it is certainly Gothic, as the name states, and takes its inspiration from a lot of the same sources as the subset of Goth fashion that is Romantic Goth. Inspiration has gone both ways between Gothic Lolita and Romantic Goth, especially in recent years, and aesthetically they are very closely linked. Both include ruffles, lace, a lot of black and a taste for anachronism, a tendency towards more modest fashion, full skirts, and details from traditional Gothic imagery. 

An aside: I would say that Romantic Goth has suffered in the past from a lot of poor-quality clothes involving cheap, scratchy lace, bad quality velvet and satin, and designs that err towards Hallowe'en vampire and witch costumes, but it seems that in the last 5 years or so, the quality has improved, and the standard has raised, probably partly through social media making it easier for models, photographers and designers to showcase what truly stunning Romantic Goth fashion can look like, thus inspiring the rest of us. Quality is something that is stressed in all forms of Lolita, and I am glad to see this attitude being taken up amongst Goths too. 

In talking about Gothic Lolita's connection to Goth, an easy place to look at is the fashion designer at Gothic Lolita brand Moi-même-Moitié and musician, having played with Malice Mizer and Moi-dix-Moits  Mana. Malice Mizer, original band of Mana, started off with a sound that included a distinct edge of the '80s Goth sound. The style of his rather influential brand - which he named Elegant Gothic Lolita and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat - has certainly taken a lot from the Goth aesthetic. A lot of the early images from the brand, modelled by a cross-dressing Mana, include having teased hair, very large platform shoes, ghostly makeup and dramatic eye-liner, elements which are very distinctly Goth, and have since fallen out of the Gothic Lolita aesthetic, but are still common in the Goth aesthetic.  

Gothic Lolita, however, is much broader than the brand Moi-même-Moitié, as there have been Gothic pieces brought out by plenty of other brands, and the now-infamous black and white colour scheme having had an enduring popularity. Lolita also pre-exists Gothic Lolita, and its earlier incarnations had very little of anything Gothic about them at all. 

Gothic Lolita is also primarily a fashion choice and Lolita a fashion-based subculture, and in that diverges significantly from the Goth subculture, as the Goth subculture is more than just its fashion aspect and places a huge importance on its musical roots and wider creative and cultural aspects.   Gothic Lolita is certainly not tied to the same bands and music as Goth, is not even as closely tied, at least in its incarnations outside of Japan, to Mana and Visual Kei music. 

Aesthetically, the two fashions are related and compatible, and inter-compatible if you want to mix things up (even though at this point it won't be considered Lolita as Lolita means adhering to the template of 'the rules') but they are not the same subculture. They are not mutually exclusive subcultures. It is utterly possible to dress in Gothic Lolita, go to Lolita meet-ups and tea-parties and be active in that subculture and also be active as a Goth; in fact, that's what I'm trying to do, although I don't intend to dress exclusively in Lolita. 

In short, Goth is a subculture that is quite broadly a subculture with a lot more to it than just fashion, and Lolita is a subculture that is primarily about fashion. Gothic Lolita is applying the aesthetic of Goth to the fashion template of Lolita, and as such bridges the gap to a degree. Dressing in Gothic Lolita does not inherently make one Goth, as one would need to participate in the broader Goth subculture, and being Goth does not exclude one from dressing in Gothic Lolita. 

Rapture Night

Rapture is a Metal, Rock & Goth night held at the Karma Lounge in Inverness. 

Raven and I went out clubbing last night. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed the evening. I spent time ahead of going out on such things as heat-straightening my purple wig, painting my cut-out, leather-effect mask from Accessorise with glitter nail-polish at the edges, and hot-gluing glittery fabric flowers from Primark onto an alice-band after the original elastic snapped. 

Festive coffin! Photo by Raven

It didn't start on time, which is my only major complaint - the published start was 21:30, but we didn't get in until after 22:00, which meant a group of us ended up waiting and chatting in the cold. The weather wasn't that bad, especially for mid-December in the Highlands - it was actually unusually mild. No snow, temperatures above freezing, only a drizzle of rain. We were all mutually acquainted to some degree, which meant we could have a nice chat (the alternative scene up here is rather small, most of us know each other at least a little bit). 

Spooky

The night itself was brilliant, with a lot of metal, moshing and head-banging to be done. I am certainly a Goth rather than a Metalhead, but even I ended up head-banging along with the others. I would say that Rapture leans more toward Metal and Rock than Alternative X, which is more varied. I made several requests and suggestions on the event's Facebook page in advance (I like to give a selection of suggestions rather than make a single request, that way it is more likely that a selected piece will match my tastes, the DJ's tastes, and the rest of the music for the night) of which at least two were played; 'Ribbons' by Sisters of Mercy and the Blutengel song 'Reich mir die Hand', which has all-German lyrics and therefore no awkward English phrasing, something that occurs in some of their English and bi-lingual songs.

One thing I feel I ought to note is that this is one of the rare times I have been out clubbing and not had the persistent attention of anyone trying to pressurise me with unwanted sexual advances - I don't know if security are doing a better job of keeping out known "creepers" or what, but I quite like having a night out without some person who will not leave me alone after being politely told that I am not interested trying to invade my personal space or worse still, touch me without my permission. 

I met up with lots of friends, some I hadn't seen in a while, and made a couple of new acquaintances (including a lassie who wasn't much into Metal, but really liked the Goth clothes of our little group). All in all, it was a good night, and I had a lot of fun (and trotted off for a chicken pakora later). I woke up rather late today (oops) and a bit sore from doing myself an injury by dancing too vigorously for my attire and lack of sobriety, but otherwise cheerful and satisfied. 

Depression & Things Left By The Wayside

I have suffered from many bouts of quite severe depression over the course of my life. Things are going pretty well right now (well, better than they have been), on that front, but they haven't always been that way, and as some may have inferred from my lack of posting this year, it hasn't always been so good recently. One of the common symptoms of depression is a cessation of doing what you once enjoyed, and over the years, my hobbies have diminished, and each time as I emerge from depression, while I tend to take up a few new hobbies once in a while, so many of the things I lost in the bout of depression stay gone. 

I've just been rummaging through old notebooks and diaries, of which I have quite a few - even before blogging I've often documented myself, not for the gaze of any readership, but as a way of preserving the memory events when my own memory is unfortunately rather fallible, and has been since childhood. I have lost so many memories of my own life, faded away too soon, so now I try and document it digitally and in more old-fashioned ways.  I've re-read accounts of photography expeditions to beautiful ruins, music practice logs detailing a 4hr to 7hr a day practice schedule, the book in which I would carefully staple the poetry I wrote on receipt scraps while working in a supermarket, the daily diaries I wrote, etc. A lot of that is currently missing from my life, and I often complain of being bored and miserable - no wonder! I no longer do a lot of what I enjoyed. 

I will try and take more photographs - and write notes once more in the lined hardback book which contains snippets of technical knowledge I have since forgotten. I will try and keep a diary each evening, as every day has some element of interest to it, however minor. I will try and practice music for at least an hour a day, and write it down in my practice logs (once carefully written in different coloured inks for each instrument I learnt, with a breakdown of what I did during practice and what needed work, and what had improved, with notes of duration of practice and a daily tally), I will try and write poetry again, however awful, and revisit old poems with a view to improving them, etc. 

There are other things that have left my life - I don't do as much archery as I did (and never photographed the quiver I made!), I don't paint or draw half as much as I did, or write as much music. I will also try to live more of a life that is worthy of being written down in ink into my (leather-bound, black, embossed, classic) diary and illustrated in quaint cartoons and hasty sketches,  rather than one that is repetitive and introspective and lived so inwardly. I need to do more, have a few more adventures, and find ways around being bound by transport and funds and lead more of the sort of life that reflected who I was and the creativity that currently remains latent, dormant, and needs waking up. 

Forcing myself to do things rather than remain in my cocoon is something I have to do. It feels easier and safer to dither away on the internet, or sit quietly in the corner and read, or even watch television, but it doesn't help - all it does is add to the guilt that I am wasting my life on not being productive. If I do something, even something as small as writing this, at least I feel that I have been at least a little bit productive, and that makes me at least a little bit happier, and the happier I am, the more enthusiasm I have to do more stuff! 

♫ Music Showcase: Contre Jour ♫

A bilingual music blog post for a bilingual band!
Un blog musical bilingue pour un groupe bilingue!

Band Name: Contra Jour
Genre:French Coldwave, New Wave
Languages: French, English
Active: 
Origin: France
Page: http://www.contrejourband.com/

Contre Jour are a French band based in Nice. Their previous incarnation was a band called Neptune. They have had several changes in band members since then, and are currently a trio.

Contre Jour est un groupe Français basé sur Nice. Avant, ils étaient connus sous le nom Neptune. Ils ont changé leurs membres depuis lors, et sont désormais un trio.

I don't think that Contre Jour would call themselves a Goth band; to me they are a very modern styling of French Coldwave (you may have noticed that this is a genre that I particularly enjoy). From their promotional photograph, they certainly do not appear to be into Goth fashion. Their fashion choices seem mainstream, but clothes do not define. A lot of their songs are sung in English, but the songs sung in their native French are beautiful and worth listening to as music even if you don't understand French. You're reading this in English, so I presume you can understand that!

Je ne pense pas que Contre Jour s’appelleraient eux-mêmes un groupe Goth; pour moi, ils appartiennent à un style très moderne du Coldwave Français (vous aurez peut-être remarqué que c'est un genre que j'apprécie particulièrement). En jugeant par leur photo de promotion, ils ne semblent pas vraiment porter de mode Gothique. Leurs chois de mode semble assez courant, mais les vêtements ne définissent pas le style. Pas mal de leurs chansons sont en français, mais les chansons chantées en anglais sont belles, et elles aussi dignes d'être écoutées juste en tant que musique même si vous ne comprenez pas l'anglais. Vu que vous lisez cet article en français, je suppose que vous le comprenez!

To me, their music sounds like something between The Cocteau Twins, Covenant and Sisters of Mercy, with synthesisers, the type of percussion that makes me think immediately of the 1980s, high production values and eerie female vocals. Their songs are not necessarily always about darker subject matter, but enough of them are, and their sound is such that I think there will definitely be a section of the readers of this blog who will appreciate them. I think they will appeal to fans of bands like Indochine as well as the more Goth bands. 

Pour moi, leur son évoquerait un mélange entre les Cocteau Twins, Covenant et Sisters of Mercy, du a leur utilisation de synthétiseurs, le genre de percussion (qui me fait penser immédiatement aux années 80), les valeurs de production élevés et les étranges voix féminines. Leurs chansons ne parlent pas nécessairement toujours de sujets sombres, mais un bon nombre d'entre eux le sont, et leur son est tel que je pense qu'il y aura certainement une partie des lecteurs de ce blog qui les apprécieront. Je pense qu'ils vont plaire aux fans de groupes comme Indochine ainsi que les groupes plus Goth. 

I only came across them recently, listening to online radio (I think it was either Cathedral 13) and think they are brilliant. They've got a new album out this january, and unfortunately I cannot pre-order it, but hopefully I will be able to buy a copy after I next get paid. Their new album will be called PASSION/FALL and you can watch a trailer on the band's website. It looks very promising from where I am sitting. 

Je ne l'ai découvert que récemment, en écoutant la radio sur en ligne (je crois que c'était soit Cathédrale 13 ou GothVille Radio) et je trouve qu'ils sont merveilleux. Ils ont un nouvel album en vente ce Janvier, et malheureusement, je ne peux pas le commander en avance, mais j'espère que je serai en mesure d'acheter un exemplaire une fois que je reçois mon prochain salaire. Leur nouvel album sera appelé PASSION / FALL et vous pouvez regarder une bande-annonce sur leur site web. Il semble très prometteur à ce que j’ai vu.

For those decidedly interested in darker things, I think that their music video for the song 'Old Age' is both suitably Gothic in its imagery and dark in its lyric content. 'Diseased' isn't exactly cheerful, but the video of the band running around the French countryside seems a lot chirpier. 

Pour ceux qui sont décidément intéresses par tout ce qui est sombre, je pense que leur vidéo pour la chanson <<Old Age>> est à la fois suffisamment Gothique dans question images, et sombre question paroles. <<Diseased>> n'est pas vraiment la plus gaie des chansons, mais la vidéo qui montre le groupe en train de courir dans campagne française a l’air quand même assez joyeux.

Big thanks to Sarge for correcting my French translations. The next band will be from an English-speaking country, I swear. French is the limit of my modern languages, I promise not to bother you with my truly awful grasp of German (I failed it at school) if I ever showcase a German band. 

♫ Music Showcase: Dead Can Dance ♫

Band Name: Dead Can Dance
Genre: Initially Post-Punk/Goth then Neo-Folk and World Fusion
Language: English
Active: 1980-1996, 2005-Present
Origin: Australia
Page: ::Dead Can Dance::
Wiki: ::Dead Can Dance Wikipedia Article::

Dead Can Dance are my first love, when it comes to 'Goth' music. I was working on a school production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and we were looking for suitable background music. Somewhere in the library of CDs was a copy of The Serpent's Egg. From the start I was hooked. I borrowed the CD, put it on repeat and listened to it through the headphones with my eyes shut, letting the music lead me off on wild imaginings. I was living in the city of Bristol, in England, at the time, and had access to a variety of record and CD shops, and started my mission to track down more music by this band and by similar. 

I was only flirting with the idea of joining the Goth subculture at the time, but was more of a bohemian, and it did not occur to me that the band were at all associated with anything Goth. Their early music actually did not really appeal to me at that time; I was looking for music that was ethereal, ancient in feel, that would take me away to a believable fantasy of a 'former Golden Age'. Unlike a lot of the Neo-Folk, New Age and World Fusion music I had listened to at the time, the music of Dead Can Dance did not seem like pastiche or a parody. It was not trying to be fantasy music; to me it was as the difference between the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas and the real Pyramids and Sphinx. 

My record and CD collection is largely still at my father's house, so I can't take a photo, but I have pretty much all of their discography, except for the live releases, and both in vinyl and CD. If I had the money, I would order Anastasis, but sadly I don't. I have always found their cover art intriguing, and the booklet art in terms of CDs. It has always made me curious to see what images were used to accompany the music. 

Severance: The Winds of Change

Dead Can Dance formed in Melbourne, in 1981, originally as a quartet, with Lisa Gerrard, Paul Erickson, and Brendan Perry and Simon Monroe. Previously, Brendan Perry (who performed under the stage name "Ronnie Recent") and Simon Monroe had been in the Australian punk band 'Marching Girls' (which became The Scavengers) and Lisa Gerrard had previously been with New Wave band 'Microfilm'. Gerrard, Perry and Monroe all moved to London in 1982. Peter Ulrich joined the band in London, in 1982, and was one of the original band members signed to 4AD records, alongside James Pinker, and continued playing live with them until 1990. 

Dead Can Dance's first album (self-titled) was released in 1984, with 4AD records, followed by 'Garden of the Arcane Delights'. Some of their early work was more in a more 'Goth' style with tracks like 'The Trial' and 'The Arcane' but also included tracks in a very different style such as 'Frontier' that were early indications of where the band was to go musically. They still ended up playing support to the likes of Xmal Deutschland (1883, Brixton Ace, London), The March Violets (March 1984, London) and The Cocteau Twins (February 1984, Victoria Palace Theatre, London) in concert. 

Allmusic's reviewer, Ned Raggett felt their early work had been "as goth as it gets", and while I would definitely say that they started off a Goth band, I think they rapidly became a Gothic band instead; their music conjures up images of ancient ruins, vast cathedrals, eerie landscapes and strange rituals. Their music is constructed of vast soundscapes, statuesque and mesmerising in their grandeur and global scope. They are so eclectic and unique that they are genuinely hard to classify into any genre; I have gone with 'world fusion' simply because I feel I need to write something, but even that does not seem truly accurate. You can find references to a wide variety of cultures, mythologies and time periods, and yet it is all brought together so harmoniously. Despite, or maybe because of, the broad scope, their music is more Gothic than even the lyrical content and imagery of And Also The Trees, and their world fusion stylings with a distinct choral element certainly seem many miles from the sounds of Bauhaus or Siouxsie and The Banshees. There are a couple of Joy Division quotes in their lyrics - in 'The Carnival Is Over', the line "Procession moves on, the shouting is over" is a quote from Joy Division song 'The Eternal' and in 'Tell Me About The Forest You Once Called Home' there is an adaptation of part of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. 

Primarily, Dead Can Dance are and were a duo; Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. The band's music has had a plethora of contributors. A lot of their tracks involve both instrumental and vocal multi-tracking, so the lineup for stage sets is often much broader than for studio line-ups, as they have a variety of backing musicians play the layered parts. Both Lisa and Brendan have incredibly powerful and mesmerising voices, with Lisa Gerrard often singing in her own idiosyncratic 'language' or glossolalia. As a contralto myself, Lisa's singing is something of an inspiration to me. Lisa Gerrard also plays the Yangquin, or Chinese Hammered Dulcimer, one of the instruments that gives the band its characteristic sound. 

They are a band with decidedly poetical lyrics and not always the sort where the meaning is immediately apparent. The content often seems spiritual, and I have noticed a tendency to more Pagan philosophy in the songs sung by Brendan and his own solo work and do wonder if he is quietly Pagan, although that could be my own inference as a Pagan myself. I've read that he's an Agnostic and that he's an Atheist, and that he's Wiccan, and as he can't be all three, where he actually stands I do not know. There are people who say Lisa's voice channels the Divine, and that she has the voice of an angel in a more literal sense than when that phrase is applied to the likes of Charlotte Church. Whether there is any inherent spiritual intent behind the music or not, I always find that it in response, I feel in a more spiritual frame of mind. 

Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard split up as a couple in the 1990s, and it seemed like 1996 album 'Spirit Chaser' was going to be their final album of new material. Their next album was titled 'Wake', and was a retrospective - to me   the title seemed like "wake" was intended as something that came after; a wake for the dead, the wake of a boat (especially with the ripples on the album cover). For a long time it seemed that Dead Can Dance had parted ways for good, Brendan and Lisa were following successful solo careers and that was the way it would stay. 

Dawn of the Iconoclasts

Back when I was at college, I did an art project on the band, cause it meant I could spend a whole term illustrating Dead Can Dance songs. It's from this project that the art I have used to illustrate this post has come.  

Lisa Gerrard had the more successful of the solo careers, mostly through collaborating with Hans Zimmer on the immensely popular soundtrack to Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator'. She has produced quite a body of work away from Dead Can Dance, and has released several albums of her own. Brendan Perry also produced solo work ('Eye of the Hunter' and 'Ark')

Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard finally toured again (As 'Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard') in 2005 - I didn't get a chance to see them then, nor will I get to seem them on October 26th, when they perform in London, as it is now a sold out performance and there would be no way of me affording to go to London or taking time off work to travel. Their latest album is 'Anastasis', named after the Greek word for resurrection, a fitting name for an album that is the band's first recording of new work in 16 years. I haven't got a copy of it yet (too poor for buying albums, even Dead Can Dance albums), but expect a review as soon as I get it. (Dear Raven, you could hurry this up by buying me the album... ) Oh, to one day hear them live! 

In my opinion they are an amazing and unique musical force, well worth listening to, even if they are somewhat away from the 'Goth' niche. Even my Dad, who is rarely in accordance with any of my musical tastes, liked what he heard when I put 'Host of the Seraphim' on the CD player, and Raven, a definite Rivethead and Metalhead, lets me put Dead Can Dance in the in-car CD thingy-whatsit. They are really, really good, with solid compositions, an amazing synthesis of widely varying styles and techniques, and with lyrics that are beautiful poetry, and albums that are one amazing song followed by the next. I can't think of any Dead Can Dance song that I don't actually like (but that might be because I'm a very biased fan!).