Dead Can Dance tonight announced the first phase of its much-anticipated 2012 reactivation, a six-week, 22-date tour of Europe that will take the group — namely co-founders and mainstays Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard — from Istanbul to Ireland in September and October.

Last May, Dead Can Dance announced it would be reuniting, and while not much has been heard since, Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard today informed fans via Facebook that ‘we have started working on the album and the world tour is taking shape… we will be announcing news in the coming weeks.’

The newly reunited Dead Can Dance are offering fans a free download of a four-track digital EP entitled ‘Live Happenings — Part 1’ to help tide them over in anticipation of the group’s 2012 reunion album and world tour, which is slated to begin in July and encompass North and South America, Europe, Australia and the Far East.

When former Dead Can Dance member Brendan Perry’s joint North American tour with Cocteau Twins co-founder Robin Guthrie rolled through Seattle last month, the acclaimed musicians dropped by the studios of indie-leaning public-radio outlet KEXP, where the 4AD veterans each performed a selection of their own songs live on the air.

Dead Can Dance will reunite for the second time since disbanding in the late 1990s to record its first new album in 16 years and set out next year on an ‘extensive two-month world tour including dates in Asia, Australasia and South America,’ the band announced this week.

His planned tour with Peter Murphy ended in nasty name-calling, but former Dead Can Dance member Brendan Perry has tapped another storied contemporary to join him on a just-announced 13-date North American tour: ex-Cocteau Twins member Robin Guthrie.

Peter Murphy will tour the U.S. in March and April, hitting, at a minimum, cities on the East and West coasts, with at least one Texas stop in between, judging from preliminary dates we’ve been able to assemble from venue and ticketing websites.

Reissue specialists Vinyl 180 will follow up their recent Cocteau Twins and Gary Numan box sets next month with the first of two multi-record Dead Can Dance sets, a 4LP box that collects the band’s first three releases plus a new Peel session disc on audiophile vinyl.

Ex-Bauhaus leader Peter Murphy finally shot back at would-be tourmate Brendan Perry today, slamming the former Dead Can Dance ‘other half’ for his ‘pretentious musical tourism’ and threatening to ‘take no hesitation in suing your bad ass.’

This week’s new CDs include the American release of The Cure’s ‘Disintegration: Deluxe Edition,’ plus new albums from Erasure’s Andy Bell, Soft Cell’s Marc Almond and Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry, and a new live album from Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh.

Despite persistent rumors of ill health, Peter Murphy this week announced 10 concerts in the U.K., Europe and Canada in late July and August as part of what he’s calling the Dirty Dirt Tour — with additional dates expected.

With that joint Peter Murphy tour now off the table, Dead Can Dance’s Brendan Perry yesterday announced the second leg of his 2010 tour: 17 dates in the U.K. and Europe spread across May, June, July, August and into September — with ‘more concerts to follow.’

A planned 100-date, joint Brendan Perry/Peter Murphy world tour isn’t happening because of the ex-Bauhaus frontman’s undisclosed health issues, leaving the former Dead Can Dance member to deride his would-be tourmate as being ‘a sandwich short of a picnic.’