Music
28 Sep 18

Dead Can Dance's Jules Maxwell Releases Solo Album

The Belfast man has also released a single as well as dates and venues of an upcoming Irish tour with Deleyaman.

Recorded over the last 5 years in his studio in northern France, Songs From The Cultural Backwater is the solo project of Dead Can Dance keyboardist Jules Maxwell to be released today.

In addition to the musician's contributions to Dead Can Dance, his 20-year career as a composer for theatre and dance as well as work elsewhere with Grammy-winning choir The Mystery Of The Bulgarian Voices and being a resident composer at London’s Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for the last six years have dictated that the releases of his handful of solo albums have been sporadic at best, but he has used this lack of a set time frame to properly hone the sound of his 12-track opus.

It's a hectic period for Maxwell, who will follow the release by accompanying Deleyaman on a brief Irish tour in October (the full dates and venues of which are set out at the bottom of this article), before once again working with Dead Can Dance for their upcoming album ‘Dionysus’ in November and subsequent tour in the new year.

The quaintly minimalist 'Blowtorch' is the lead single off of Songs From The Cultural Backwater, a song which three separate videos have been produced for. The first of which was uploaded last week and was created by illustrator and former The Cure member Perry Bamonte.

“Blowtorch is one of my most lyrically colourful songs", Maxwell said of the single. "Interpreting it in film was always going to be a huge challenge. I was pretty sure I wanted something utterly minimal and not too illustrative. In their different ways all three films provide visual portals into hearing the lyrics more vividly. That’s what I love about all them all. There’s a beautiful sadness to them which completely connects with what I was trying to communicate in the words and music”.

Both yet to be released are the second and third videos, the former by animator David Daniels, and the latter featuring his own son Mani in Toronto, to whom this album is dedicated to.

Songs From The Cultural Backwater by Jules Maxwell is out now, check out the first video for 'Blowtorch' below.