Dead Can Dance on SACD

I'll be interested to hear how they sound as well. DCD albums are among the best recorded artists out there. (I'd advise going to their website and ordering a copy of their "Selections from the 2005 North American Tour" while you still can. Great stuff, fabulous live sound right off the boards.) There aren't many artists I'd consider buying again in a different format, but DCD are.

I asked a music shop I do business with about the release date for these. He checked and said it's been pushed back to the 20th of June now.

I ordered a copy of "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun" from Hong Kong last week and it got here this afternoon. I've listened to it once and my initial impressions are quite favorable. They definitely have remastered them, and it's not a subtle difference between SACD and Redbook when played back through my Marantz Sa11S1. There is some evidence of the tendency to enhance treble frequencies that I find common in remasters these days, but the recording quality is so fine that I don't find it harsh or grating (as has sometimes been the case.) The soundstage on several tracks is vast, quite amazing. On the strengths of this disc, I'll probably buy the whole set. I noticed Amazon dropped the price to $14.99 a disc recently BTW.

Phaelon, "A Passage in Time" was released by Rykodisc, not 4AD recordings, so it's outside the label that's doing this project. "Wake" is a compilation, and the project was just the original nine studio albums. I agree that it would be nice to offer "Wake" as a good intro to this group. I was introduced to DCD through an unexpected source, a professor who is the director of our local Bach festival. He started raving about them one day and I checked them out, my esteem for them has only grown since.

Yeah, you're getting a fancy package and a number for $90.00. You'll not likely lose money on it if you buy it and ever resell it though. DCD fans are often some of the most rabid collectors of rare and arcane issues you'll ever meet. If you do a little research on the sale prices on the second hand market for limited edition DCD issues, you'll be amazed at the rapid escalation of prices. I'm not one to buy issues on the basis of potential collectible appreciation, just throwing this out there. The box set is now sold out from the distributor on the second day. Many retailers with copies are now asking over $300 for the set.

Of the new SACD's, I'd suggest starting with their live '94 album, "Toward the Within." It has many of their best songs from their first six albums plus new tracks (at the time.) It's a nice long collection of very well recorded material. It might not be quite the sonic equal of their best studio recordings, but the performances are great and it is a good overview of their oeuvre.

Amen Jorge, you are so right. The discs look immaculate, but they are such big a PITA to use. I'm just trimming off the flap of the outer sleeve and removing the goo with alcohol. BTW, I'd never bought their first two discs as they were never reviewed as being up to the standards of "Spleen and Ideal" and those after that. After listening to the the first two, I'm amazed at how fast they established their mature signature sound. Their first release is a muddled sonic mess that sounds like it was recorded on a four track Tascam with $60.00 Radio Shack mikes. SACD does nothing to help that one. The second EP disc sounds much better and the music is starting to gel into something good.