Northumbrian electro-folk musician and producer Frankie Archer has announced her debut album, The Dance of Death, out 5th June via prrr of the bear. New single ‘The Unquiet Grave‘ is out now.
The album follows Archer’s 2024 EP Pressure and Persuasion and 2023’s Never So Red. On The Dance of Death, she reconstructs some of the oldest songs in the English canon with fractured, future-facing production — warping fiddle lines, processing her own vocals and driving the material with pulsing drum machines and colourful synth arrangements. Co-produced with Guy Massey (Kylie Minogue, Spiritualized, Richard Hawley), the record expands English folk into something immersive and modern.
Influenced by the work of Little Dragon, Hannah Peel, Rosalía, Björk and Bat for Lashes, Archer approaches folk as a producer first. Inspired by the medieval Danse Macabre, The Dance of Death is, in her words, “a collection of nu-ancient trad bangers” — stark narratives of mortality and longing rebuilt through meticulous studio experimentation.
Born in Hexham, Archer grew up surrounded by Northumbrian traditional music and cites Kathryn Tickell, The Unthanks and Jim Moray among her earliest influences. She won the Christian Raphael Prize at Cambridge Folk Festival in 2023 and has since appeared on Later… with Jools Holland, played Glastonbury, and supported The Futureheads and The Last Dinner Party on tour.
On the new single ‘The Unquiet Grave’, Archer said:
“The Unquiet Grave is about grief, love, and letting go. The song echoes the idea that excessive grieving can disturb the dead, and plays out in a conversation between a woman and her lost love. I really wanted to focus on the joy and love in the relationship, celebrating the closeness and tenderness of the two souls in the story, so I made an electropop-feeling chorus to uplift them and everyone listening.”
Frankie Archer will tour The Dance of Death this autumn with dates in London, Liverpool, Gateshead, Bristol and Birmingham.
LIVE DATES
27 September – Gateshead, The Glasshouse
30 September – Liverpool, Liverpool Philharmonic
01 October – London, King’s Place
02 October – Bristol, St George’s
03 October – Birmingham, Midlands Arts Centre
PRE-ORDER ‘The Dance of Death’ album:
https://ffm.to/thedanceofdeath-fa