Frankie Archer has shared ‘The Dance of Death’, the title track and final preview of her debut album of the same name, due 5th June via prrr of the bear.
The Northumbrian electro-folk musician and producer has spent the past two years building a reputation as one of the most genuinely singular voices in British folk music: a Glastonbury appearance, a BBC Proms performance alongside Hannah Peel, Beibei Wang and Hania Rani, a live television spot on Later… With Jools Holland, support slots with The Last Dinner Party and The Futureheads, and a Guardian ‘One To Watch’ designation have all followed the release of her early EPs. The debut album is where that momentum arrives at something definitive.
Co-produced with Guy Massey, whose credits include Kylie Minogue, Spiritualized and Richard Hawley, The Dance of Death reconstructs nine archival English ballads of obsession, devotion and loss through fractured, future-facing production. Fiddle lines are warped, vocals processed, the material driven by pulsing drum machines and dense synth arrangements. The results sit closer to Little Dragon, Bat for Lashes and Rosalía than to any conventional folk reference point.
The title track is the album’s most visceral moment: blistering synth riffs, chanting and medieval text on the lore of death, built around the concept of the Danse Macabre. “The Dance of Death is a romp,” Archer has said. “A final rave in the face of mortality. The idea of Death coming to claim people with a dance was popular in medieval times when the plague made people face their own mortality. The moral of the story is: nobody is immune from death, so let’s live life while we can.”
An autumn tour follows the album’s release, taking in five intimate venues.
27 Sep – The Glasshouse, Gateshead
30 Sep – Liverpool Philharmonic, Liverpool
1 Oct – King’s Place, London
2 Oct – St George’s, Bristol
3 Oct – Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham
