Dead Can Dance singer Lisa Gerrard and Irish composer Jules Maxwell release an extended Deluxe edition of their critically acclaimed 2021 album, ‘BURN’
“Burn is as essential as anything else in Gerrard’s unique songbook”
themusic.com
“Burn sounds like an enigmatic requiem; music for your own act of remembrance”
mojo
“Burn is the world music equivalent of seeing life in bright colour for the first time”higherplainmusic.com
“It is with great pleasure that I share this expanded edition of the BURN album. Jules Maxwell and I began our creative collaboration with Dead Can Dance, and immediately realised that we had a shared connection through improvisation.
This new edition includes Jules’ original demos and coincides with our first live concerts of the BURN album in Portugal this coming November”
Lisa Gerrard September 2022
SoundCloud link to the original demos : https://on.soundcloud.com/FYcKq
The record’s beginnings go all the way back to 2012 when Jules Maxwell was brought in by Dead Can Dance as a keyboard player on their Anastasis World Tour. He and the band’s singer Lisa Gerrard created a new piece called ‘Rising Of The Moon’, which was performed as the gripping final encore of each show. By the time the tour finished in Santiago, Chile in 2013 a strong affinity had begun to develop between the two of them and further opportunities to collaborate with each other resulted over subsequent years.
In 2015, when Maxwell was asked to submit songs for the Bulgarian choir ‘Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares’ album Boocheemish, he approached Gerrard once again to co-write material for the new release. Having
travelled to Australia to work in her home studio, the pair came away with four new songs for that release, as well as the building blocks for this new venture together.
With James Chapman (aka MAPS) joining the duo as producer, ideas began to be generated freely and over time a distinct sound for their work began to emerge.
Speaking about the creative flow between the three musicians, Jules said, “I’ve never worked on anything which was so frictionless creatively as this. Very little was ever said. Communication happened only through the music. We accepted without question what each other offered to the feast. There was an enormous generosity on all sides. I sometimes think we talk too much anyway when creating music, when there is no need really. The music says it all”
With Lisa remaining in Australia, Jules adding keyboards and percussion from his studio in Northern France, and James bringing new light to the sound from England, the three were literally worlds apart but somehow these worlds became fused in the music.
James Chapman recalls “I felt a real sense of freedom and enjoyment while working with Jules and Lisa, and that feeling comes across in the sound of the songs. An otherworldly, expansive sense of wonder where anything is possible."
Jules added, “Sifting through Lisa’s vocal performances felt like panning for gold. That was the starting point for sure. There were some big nuggets in there but also loads of little sparkles and very quickly the music we were creating became curiously dramatic. Cinematic. It also seemed to transcend eras. To me it feels a bit like early Vangelis but it also has a distinct Celtic influence somewhere below the surface. The music is not afraid to be courageous. There are many audacious elements and moments within each piece”
The ‘Burn’ Deluxe Edition consists of the seven original tracks from the album, plus Jules Maxwell’s original 2015 demos.
Jules Maxwell reflects, “It took BURN nearly six years to be finally released, and over time I pretty much forgot about my original demos from 2015. I just rejoiced in the fact that JAMES CHAPMAN had utterly transformed the songs with his sonic and arrangement choices. But when I heard the demos again I realised that what he has done brilliantly is take our ideas and remix them in glorious widescreen whilst maintaining the energy of the original ideas in the final versions. I think, as a collection, this new expanded edition gives listeners a fascinating insight into our creative process.
