''Within the Realm of a Dying Sun'' is the third studio album by Australian band

Dead Can Dance Dead Can Dance are a British-Australian band founded in Melbourne in 1981 by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, before relocating to London the following year. The Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described Dead Can Dance's style as "const ...

. It was released on 27 July 1987 by

4AD 4AD is a British record label owned by Beggars Group. It was founded in London under the name Axis Records by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent in 1980 as an imprint of Beggars Banquet Records. The name was changed to 4AD after the release of th ...

Background

By this time, Dead Can Dance were predominantly a duo of

Lisa Gerrard Lisa Germaine Gerrard ( ; born 12 April 1961) is an Australian musician, singer and composer and member of the group Dead Can Dance with music partner Brendan Perry. She is known for her unique singing style technique (glossolalia). She has a ...

and

Brendan Perry Brendan Michael Perry (born 30 June 1959) is a British singer and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as half of the duo Dead Can Dance with Lisa Gerrard. Early life Perry was born in Whitechapel, London, England, UK, in 1959 to a mot ...

, along with

Peter Ulrich Peter Lawrence Ulrich (born 29 August 1958 in Perivale, England) is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, recording artist and author. Biography He was educated at Vaughan School in West Harrow, Cannon Lane School in Pinner, the John Lyon Sch ...

, after the departure of Scott Rodger and James Pinker in 1987. On the sound of the album, the group commented, "We realised we had been limiting our musical visions efore relying around guitar, bass and drums. These instruments weren't adequate to express a lot of the things we were hearing". On the making of the album, 4AD label owner

Ivo Watts-Russell Ivo Watts-Russell (born 1954) is a British music producer and record label executive. He was joint-founder with Peter Kent of the independent record label 4AD. He has produced several records, although he prefers to use the term "musical director" ...

commented, "I think the relationship between them and roducerJohn Rivers was at its peak with 'Within the Realm of a Dying Sun'' It's probably my favourite record of theirs". Gerrard's vocals featured prominently on the second half of the album, and her singing style often had mellifluous, mystical overtones, especially on "Cantara". The cover's photograph was taken in Paris, at the family grave of

François-Vincent Raspail François-Vincent Raspail, L.L.D., M.D. (; 25 January 1794 – 7 January 1878) was a French chemist, naturalist, physician, physiologist, attorney, and socialist politician. Biography Raspail was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse. A member of the ...

at Père-Lachaise cemetery.

Legacy

*Vocals from "Dawn of the Iconoclast" were sampled by

The Future Sound of London The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. They have been described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act, covering techno, ambient music, ambient, house ...

for their 1991 single "

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

". *American pop singer Fergie later also sampled "Dawn of the Iconoclast" for her song "

Hungry Hunger is a sensation that motivates the consumption of food. The sensation of hunger typically manifests after only a few hours without eating and is generally considered to be unpleasant. Satiety occurs between 5 and 20 minutes after eating. T ...

" featuring

Rick Ross William Leonard Roberts II (born January 28, 1976), known professionally as Rick Ross, is an American rapper. An influential figure in modern Hip-hop, hip hop music, Rick Ross has become known for his "Wiktionary:booming, booming" vocal perfor ...

, featured on her 2017 album, ''

Double Dutchess ''Double Dutchess'' is the second studio album by American singer and rapper Fergie. It was released on September 22, 2017. The album is the singer's first to be released under her own imprint, Dutchess Music, in a partnership with Retrofuture P ...

''. The song interpolated the chant with hip-hop beats and vocals from both artists. *"Summoning Of The Muse" was sampled by fellow 4AD alumni A.R. Kane for the interlude track "Off Into Space" from their album "i" (1989). *"Xavier" has been covered by British

gothic metal Gothic metal (or goth metal) is a fusion genre combining the aggression of heavy metal music, heavy metal with the dark atmospheres of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different ...

band

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their ex ...

. This cover is available on the Limited Edition of their 2002 album ''

Symbol of Life ''Symbol of Life'' is the ninth studio album by British metal band Paradise Lost (band), Paradise Lost. It marks a departure by the band from their Synthesizer, synth-based approach and returning to a much heavier sound, although not abandoning ...

''. *The opening section of "Anywhere Out of the World" was also used repeatedly as haunting background music in the

BBC Horizon ''Horizon'' is an ongoing and long-running British documentary television series on BBC Two that covers science and philosophy. History The programme was first broadcast on 2 May 1964 with "The World of Buckminster Fuller", which explored the th ...

episode #30.7 "Hunt For The Doomsday Asteroid" in February 1994, originally broadcast ahead of the predicted impact of

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, an ...

with the planet

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

in July that same year.

Reception

British magazine

Fact A fact is a truth, true data, datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to Fact-checking, check facts. Science, Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by ...

considered ''Within the Realm of a Dying Sun'' amongst the "20 Best Goth Records Ever Made"

Track listing

Release history

Personnel

Dead Can Dance

– vocals (5,6,7,8), all other instruments, production *

– vocals (1,3,4), all other instruments, production, sleeve design

Additional personnel

– timpani, military snare * Ruth Watson – oboe * Gus Ferguson – cello * Tony Gamage – cello * John Singleton – trombone * Richard Avison – trombone * Andrew Claxton – bass trombone, tuba * Mark Gerrard – trumpet * Piero Gasparini – viola * Alison Harling – violin * Emlyn Singleton – violin

Technical personnel

* John A. Rivers – production, engineering * Francisco Cabeza – engineering

Artwork

* Bernard Oudin – sleeve photography

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1987 albums Dead Can Dance albums 4AD albums Albums produced by John A. Rivers