Music: Southern Gothic from Dunedin’s Death and the Maiden

by Death and the Maiden

The phrase “death and the maiden” refers to the figures of death (in art, often a skeleton) with that of youth and life, a jarring juxtaposition reflecting memento mori (remember, you will die) and the age-old prayer “even in the midst of life, we are in death”.

It’s the title of a string-quartet piece by Franz Schubert, an 18th-century poem by Matthias Claudius, and paintings by Egon Schiele, Hans Baldung and Edvard Munch among many other European artists. It’s grim up north.

Down here, it immediately brings to mind Graeme Downes’ 1983 signature song for the Verlaines.

Naming your band Death and the Maiden – as Dunedin’s Lucinda King, Hope Robinson and Danny Brady have done – conjures up bleak imagery.

Their self-titled 2015 debut album’s cover was a stark black and white Esta de Jong photo of a hand holding a stem of orchids from her All That Lives Must Die series.

It’s grim down south?

Although the trio – named for the Munch, incidentally – explore the porous, emotional boundary between life and death/light and darkness, their gloom-pop often radiates a beguiling discomfort.

Obvious touchstones are early Cure and Joy Division/New Order – washes of guitars, synth drums, bass to the fore, repeated and minimalist trance-like melodies – but King’s ethereal vocals and lyrics elevate the often-mesmerising, if familiar, atmospheres of Uneven Ground.

There’s an increasingly oppressive, relentlessness to Waratah and Nola – the latter settling on the repeated “now it’s gone” and “you’re not around” – that overwhelm King’s voice; Not Like comes with disturbing turntable scratching by Alphabethead and an intricate weave of vocals; the menacing Ceramic is discordant and disruptive in this context.