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.

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.

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.

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