''Dreamtime'' is the debut studio album by English rock band

the Cult The Cult are an English rock band formed in 1983 in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Before settling on their current name in January 1984, the band performed under the name Death Cult, which was an evolution of the name of lead singer Ian Astbury's ...

. Released on 31 August 1984 by

Beggars Banquet Records Beggars Banquet Records is a British independent record label. Beggars Banquet started as a chain of record shops owned by Martin Mills and Nick Austin and is part of the Beggars Group of labels. History In 1977, spurred by the prevailing DI ...

, it peaked at No. 21 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

and was later certified silver by the BPI after having sold 60,000 copies. The first single, "

Spiritwalker "Spiritwalker" is a single by the English rock band The Cult and was released in 11 May 1984. "Spiritwalker" is the lead single from the ''Dreamtime'' album, although it was released nearly five months before the album was released. Song orig ...

", peaked at No. 1 on the

UK Indie Chart The UK Independent Singles Chart and UK Independent Albums Chart are charts of the best-selling independent singles and albums, respectively, in the United Kingdom. Originally published in January 1980, and widely known as the indie chart, the rele ...

. ''Dreamtime'' has subsequently been reissued (or in some cases bootlegged) in roughly 30 countries worldwide. Lyrics to the song "Horse Nation" are taken almost verbatim from the book ''

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee ''Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West'' is a 1970 non-fiction book by American writer Dee Brown that covers the history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century. The book expres ...

''. "

" is a reference to shamanism, while "Dreamtime" is inspired by mythology of the

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

and 'Butterflies' is a reference to the Hopi ceremonial butterfly dance. "A Flower in the Desert" is a reworking of the

Southern Death Cult Southern Death Cult were a British post-punk/ gothic rock band in the early 1980s. They are now primarily known for having given their lead singer and parts of the name to the multi-platinum hard rock band the Cult. Despite the similarities in ...

's song "Flowers in the Forest". The music of the album is characterized as dramatic, moody, dark psychedelic, with "crystalline guitar not that far off from what U2 was going after". In 1985

Ian Astbury Ian Robert Astbury (born 14 May 1962) is an English singer, best known as a founding member, lead vocalist and frontman of the rock band the Cult. During various hiatuses from the Cult, Astbury has fronted the short-lived Holy Barbarians in 1 ...

noted that The Cult were "like

Big Country Big Country are a Scottish rock band formed in Dunfermline, Fife, in 1981. The height of the band's popularity was in the early to mid 1980s, although it has retained a cult following for many years since. The band's music incorporated Scott ...

and U2, only better!". The record was originally being produced by Joe Julian, but after recording the drums, the band decided to replace him, and Beggars Banquet suggested John Brand. The record was ultimately produced by Brand, but guitarist

Billy Duffy William Henry Duffy (born 12 May 1961) is an English rock musician, best known as the guitarist of the band The Cult. Early life Duffy was born and grew up in Manchester. He has Irish and Jewish heritage and ancestry. He began playing the g ...

has said that the drum tracks used on the record were those produced by Julian, as band drummer Nigel Preston had become too unreliable by that time.

Album information

The record was largely recorded at

Rockfield Studios Rockfield Studios is a residential recording studio located in the Wye Valley just outside the village of Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales. It was originally founded in 1963 by brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward. Facilities Rockfield is a two- ...

, near

Monmouth Monmouth ( , ; cy, Trefynwy meaning "town on the Monnow") is a town and community in Wales. It is situated where the River Monnow joins the River Wye, from the Wales–England border. Monmouth is northeast of Cardiff, and west of London. I ...

, Wales, in late March and early April 1984, mixed at

Eel Pie Studios Eel Pie Recording Studios, formerly Oceanic, was a recording studio located in The Boathouse, Twickenham on the banks of the River Thames in Ranelagh Drive, by Twickenham Bridge, West London, and also simultaneously at No. 45 Broadwick Street, ...

Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boroug ...

, from 16 to 24 April 1984, and mastered on 27 April 1984. This record was originally intended to be released on

Situation Two Situation Two (a.k.a. Situation 2) was a British independent record label founded in 1981 by Peter Kent as an offshoot of the Beggars Banquet label. At the time, Beggars Banquet releases were often distributed by WEA; to appeal to the indie ...

, with a catalogue number SITU 57 (or 12). This pressing was to include the original version of "

Go West (Crazy Spinning Circles) "Go West (Crazy Spinning Circles)" is a single by the English rock band The Cult and was released on 10 August 1984. Often truncated as just "Go West", it is the second single from the ''Dreamtime (The Cult album), Dreamtime'' album. B-Side The B- ...

" which uses a psychedelic

phasing A phaser is an electronic sound processor used to filter a signal, and it has a series of troughs in its frequency-attenutation graph. The position (in Hz) of the peaks and troughs are typically modulated by an internal low-frequency oscillat ...

on the end choruses. Only a small handful of white label test pressings were made of this record before the band decided they didn't like that version. They subsequently recorded a new version of the song after signing to

, and that second, more "finalised" version of the song was released. The re-recording of "

" was done at Livingston Recording Studios on 22 June 1984. The original test pressing of "Dreamtime" stands as one of the more rare and collectable studio Cult vinyl pressings. "Bone Bag" (sometimes listed as "Bonebag") was the original

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

on the "

" single. "Sea and Sky" was the original B-side of "

" and "Ressurection Joe" (not spelled in the correct form "Resurrection Joe" but intentionally misspelled) was a new single recorded in November 1984 and released on 14 December 1984. They are included as

bonus tracks An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...

on the original CD pressings in all countries except the original CD pressing in the Netherlands, where only the 10 original songs are present. The first CD version in the Netherlands also uses different artwork for the back cover. In Germany, the CD version incorrectly lists 13 songs on the back cover, but only includes the 10 original songs as were on vinyl.

Release

''Dreamtime'' was released on 31 August 1984 as a double album, accompanied by a nine-song live album titled ''

Dreamtime Live at the Lyceum ''Live at the Lyceum'' is a live album by The Cult, recorded live at the Lyceum Ballroom in London on 20 May 1984. The band performed 15 songs at the concert, which was edited down to nine songs for this release. In the UK, it was released with ...

'', recorded at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 20 May 1984. There were only 30.000 copies of the live record originally manufactured. It was also released in the UK with different artwork, and on 23 November 1984 also as a picture disc LP. The record was released in Malaysia for the first time in July 1990, with the second version of the artwork used for the cover. In

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

in January 1991, two versions of this record were released by Globus International: one is on black vinyl, and the other is on blue vinyl. The blue vinyl version is apparently quite rare. Both Czechoslovakian pressings use the artwork from the second British pressing. In 2003, the album was remastered and reissued on CD in the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

and

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

with the three bonus tracks and different artwork. In October 2004 the record was also remastered and reissued on CD with different artwork in Japan.

Track listing

All songs written by

and

, except where noted.

LP

;Side one # "Horse Nation" – 3:45 # "

" – 3:39 # "83rd Dream" – 3:38 # "Butterflies" – 3:00 # "

" – 3:59 ;Side two # "Gimmick" – 3:33 # "A Flower in the Desert" (Ian Astbury, Barry Jepson, David Burroughs, Haq Qureshi) – 3:42 # "Dreamtime" – 2:47 # "Rider in the Snow" – 3:11 # "Bad Medicine Waltz" – 5:55

Compact Cassette

;Side one The complete album is recorded on the first side. # "Horse Nation" # "Spiritwalker" # "83rd Dream" # "Butterflies" # "Go West (Crazy Spinning Circles)" # "Gimmick" # "A Flower in the Desert" # "Dreamtime" # "Rider in the Snow" # "Bad Medicine Waltz" ;Side two ''

'' is recorded on the second side. # "83rd Dream" # "

Gods Zoo "Gods Zoo" is a single by the English post-punk/gothic rock band Death Cult (who later shortened their name to the Cult), released on 23 October 1983 by Situation Two. The song is often, erroneously, spelled "God's Zoo" (with an apostrophe in the ...

" # "Bad Medicine" # "Dreamtime" # "Christians" # "Horse Nation" # "Bone Bag" # "Brothers Grimm" # "Moya"

CD bonus tracks

# "Bone Bag" – 3:47 # "Sea and Sky" – 3:32 # "

Ressurection Joe "Ressurection Joe" is a single by the English rock band The Cult, it was released on 14 December 1984 and wasn't found on any previous studio album by the group. "Ressurection Joe" was later, in 1986, included on the first United Kingdom compac ...

" – 6:07 # "Love Removal Machine" ("Peace" version) (Russian and eastern Europe only) # "Zap City" (Russian and eastern Europe only) There is a slightly longer version of "

", with a running time of 3:54. In France, a special promotional 12" record was issued, consisting of three tracks: # "

" # "

" # "83rd Dream" (recorded live at the Lyceum on 20 May 1984) The full album was later released in France, packaged with the live album ''Dreamtime live at the Lyceum''. The Japanese LP features a photo of the band on the front cover, instead of the original artwork. When remastered and reissued on CD in 1996, only the 10 original songs were included. On the original Canadian vinyl pressing, the track listing is re-arranged for unknown reasons: #A1 "Gimmick" – 3:33 #A2 "

" – 3:39 #A3 "83rd Dream" – 3:38 #A4 "Butterflies" – 3:00 #A5 "Bad Medicine Waltz" – 5:55 #B1 "Horse Nation" – 3:45 #B2 "A Flower in the Desert" (Astbury, Jepson, Burroughs, Quereshi) – 3:42 #B3 "Dreamtime" – 2:47 #B4 "Rider in the Snow" – 3:11 #B5 "

" – 3:59

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the ''Dreamtime'' liner notes. The Cult *

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

–

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

* Jamie Stewart – bass, backing vocals *

Nigel Preston Nigel Preston (4 April 1963, Birmingham, England – 1 April 1992) was an English drummer. He was a founding member of the Cult. He also played and recorded with Theatre of Hate, Sex Gang Children, the Baby Snakes, the Gun Club and DeLuca. H ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

with: *Mich Ebeling – backing vocals on "Gimmick"

Charts and certifications

In 1984, Dreamtime debuted at No. 21 in the UK. In 1987, ''Dreamtime'' was certified silver in the United Kingdom.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dreamtime (The Cult Album) The Cult albums 1984 debut albums Albums produced by Chris Kimsey Beggars Banquet Records albums Albums recorded at Rockfield Studios