The Serpent's Egg (album)
| The Serpent's Egg | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 24 October 1988 | |||
| Genre | Neoclassical dark wave | |||
| Length | 36:15 | |||
| Label | 4AD | |||
| Producer | Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, John A. Rivers | |||
| Dead Can Dance chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Serpent's Egg is the fourth studio album by the Australian band Dead Can Dance, released on 24 October 1988 by record label 4AD.
Background[edit]
The album was the last produced while Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard were a romantic couple. A majority of the album was recorded in a multi-storey apartment block in the Isle of Dogs, London.
Perry discussed the album's title: "In a lot of aerial photographs of the Earth, if you look upon it as a giant organism—a macrocosmos—you can see that the nature of the life force, water, travels in a serpentine way".[1]
Track listing[edit]
All tracks are written by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Host of Seraphim[2]" | 6:18 |
| 2. | "Orbis de Ignis" | 1:35 |
| 3. | "Severance" | 3:22 |
| 4. | "The Writing on My Father's Hand" | 3:50 |
| 5. | "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings" | 4:12 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Chant of the Paladin" | 3:48 |
| 2. | "Song of Sophia" | 1:24 |
| 3. | "Echolalia" | 1:17 |
| 4. | "Mother Tongue" | 5:16 |
| 5. | "Ullyses" | 5:09 |
Reception[edit]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
In a retrospective review, AllMusic said, "Perry and Gerrard continued to experiment and improve with The Serpent's Egg, as much a leap forward as Spleen and Ideal was some years previously", heaping particular praise on the album opener "The Host of Seraphim", which it called "so jaw-droppingly good that almost the only reaction is sheer awe".[3]
Legacy[edit]
- Electronic music duo The Chemical Brothers used a reversed sample of "Song of Sophia" in "Song to the Siren" in 1992, later also included on the album Exit Planet Dust in 1995.[4]
- Orkidea sampled "The Host of Seraphim" in his 1999 single "Unity".
- Rapper G Herbo sampled "The Host of Seraphim" on his song "4 Minutes of Hell, Part 3" from his debut mixtape, Welcome to Fazoland.
- Experimental act Ulver covered "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings" for the Dead Can Dance tribute album Tribute to Dead Can Dance: The Lotus Eaters, released in 2004.
- French rapper Keny Arkana sampled "The Host Of Seraphim" on her song "Je Passe Le Salut", from her album "L'Esquisse Vol. 2" released in 2011.
- "In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Are Kings" was also covered by death metal act Cattle Decapitation as a bonus track on their 2019 album Death Atlas.
In popular culture[edit]
"The Host of Seraphim" was featured in the 1992 non-narrative documentary film Baraka (and was included in the film's soundtrack), the theatrical trailers for the 2003 film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and the 2006 film Home of the Brave, in the final scenes of the 2007 film The Mist[5] and in the 2018 film Lords of Chaos.
A short excerpt of "Ullyses" was also used as background music in the BBC Horizon episode #30.7 "Hunt For The Doomsday Asteroid" in February 1994, originally broadcast ahead of the predicted impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the planet Jupiter in July that same year.
"Severance" was used in the "Victims of Circumstance" episode of Miami Vice.
Release history[edit]
| Country | Date |
|---|---|
| Australia | 24 October 1988 |
| United States | 2 February 1994 |
Personnel[edit]
- Lisa Gerrard – vocals, production on tracks 3–6, 8 and 9
- Brendan Perry – vocals, hurdy-gurdy, production, sleeve design
- Andrew Beesley – viola
- Sarah Buckley – viola
- Tony Gamage – cello
- Alison Harling – violin
- Rebecca Jackson – violin
- David Navarro Sust – vocals
- Technical
- John A. Rivers – co-production on tracks 1, 2, 7 and 10
- Vaughan Oliver – sleeve design (with Brendan Perry)
References[edit]
- ^ "The Serpent's Egg (1988)". Dead Can Dance. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
- ^ Perry, Robbie (5 May 2021). "Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard and Jules Maxwell Unveil New LP "Burn"". Flood Magazine. Los Angeles, California, USA: Alan Sartirana. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
- ^ a b "The Serpent's Egg – Dead Can Dance". AllMusic. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
- ^ Patrin, Nate (21 July 2015). "The 10 Best Chemical Brothers Songs". Stereogum.
- ^ "Dead Can Dance". IMDB.
External links[edit]
- The Serpent's Egg at the band's official website
- The Serpent's Egg at MusicBrainz (list of releases)
- The Serpent's Egg on YouTube
