Born on April 12: Lisa Gerrard, Not Just the Mesmerising Voice of Dead Can Dance

She was born in Melbourne (Australia) in 1961 and has lent her incantatory vocals to numerous musical projects. Alongside Brendan Perry in Dead Can Dance, she has often been regarded as an ethereal vestal draped in long tunics evoking ancient Greece. Lisa Gerrard certainly possesses a contralto voice with an exceptional range, but she began in a local punk band named Microfilm. If someone asked her to send shivers down her listeners’ spines by reciting the telephone directory, one imagines she could not only rise to the challenge but enjoy it. Unfortunately, such fascinating works have disappeared. Like great painters, her collaboration with Brendan unfolds in two periods, between 1981 and 1998 and, intermittently, since 2012. Together, they have toured the world several times. The early dark wave quickly took an incantatory direction, sometimes inspired by liturgy, sometimes almost shamanic. Sometimes subtle; sometimes more noticeable, the borrowings from the folklores of four continents have, as it were, become a trademark. Besides, one of Lisa’s favourite instruments remains the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer rather than plucked) which can be heard on The Mirror Pool in 1995. Before delving back into a meditative trance, her admirers often wonder in which language Lisa Gerrard is singing. According to her, it is mostly an idiom she invented as a child, which enhances the mysterious aspect of her psalmody. As for the enumeration of her collaborations, as diverse as they are varied, their list would resemble a Prévert-like inventory. However, one can note an interest in cinema with sometimes surprising choices like Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) or even Mission Impossible with Hans Zimmer. But more often than not, Lisa Gerrard stays true to the image we have of her by opting for independent or downright avant-garde productions. Proudly unclassifiable yet directly identifiable, Lisa Gerrard has therefore not finished surprising us while remaining true to herself. The squaring of the circle, in a way.... (Stéphane Soupart - Photo: © Christophe Dehousse / Music Belgium Photos) Photo: Lisa Gerrard solo on stage at the Forum in Liège (Belgium) on 9th February 2025.