Dead Can Dance inspire in Frankfurt
EIt takes an intuitive certainty to let one’s own timeless artistic longevity pass 16 years between two album releases. Especially in the upset half-life calibrated pop culture. Dead Can Dance, a sound experiment by the British Brendan Perry and the Australian Lisa Gerrard in Melbourne in 1981, originally as a band from the upscale baptism, then continued as a duo, failed in 1998 at the first career high point: after the separation of the couple, who also ran privately, came the artistic Out of . A short-lived reunion followed seven years later. It wasn’t until 2011 that Dead Can Dance consolidated again in a fixed formation. In 2012 the album “Anastasis” was released, six years later “Dionysus”.
A touch of eternity also pervades the first of two evenings in the Frankfurt Centennial Hall. With the virtuosos Astrid Williamson, Jules Maxwell (both keyboards and vocals), Dan Gresson (drums), Richard Yale (bass) and Robert Perry (flute, percussion) at their side, the front couple, greeted with thunderous applause, happily roams through their own song canon from nine studio albums. With a few exceptions, the two main voices present the stylistic all-round combination of neoclassic, art rock, medieval chorales, Afro-polyrhythmics, Celtic folk and mantras from the Middle and Far East.
Sometimes fantasy language, sometimes English
In their precise cases, the ex-couple also gives off a visually unequal picture in subdued lighting with psychedelic projections: with a meticulous Princess Grace memorial high hairstyle on her head and wrapped in an antique floor-length cape, she rises as a gothic queen the fan community admired Lisa Gerrard for her flawless contra-alto voice, meticulously uses the Chinese dulcimer yang-qin. Having matured into a recognized film composer, she has just returned from a tour with her long-term artistic partner, Hollywood heavyweight Hans Zimmer. Brendan Perry’s velvety baritone charisma emanates from the earth. He regularly switches between electrically amplified bouzouki and electric guitar, occasionally picking up the drum.
While Lisa Gerrard uses onomatopoeic fantasy language, Brendan Perry intones his more accessible hymns in English. Elaborate sound collages of overlength keep Dead Can Dance ready for mental cinema: “Opium” and “Black Sun” each live from hymn-like harmony and intricate polyrhythms, with “Amnesia” the slow-motion beat is dragged out. In a different transcendence, “Sanvean” sparkles without any rhythm and is reduced to a trio. “Persian Love Song (The Silver Gun)” is back in the repertoire after decades. Addresses to the audience, on the other hand, are consistently brief: Gerrard communicates with a stern look and a hint of a smile, Perry with just a few words. After the encore with “Children of the Sun”, “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” and “Severance”, Brendan Perry in particular shows humility. In almost accent-free German and with folded hands, he replies to the deference of the crowd of visitors: “Thank you, you are wonderful!”