I have been writing about Death Machine’s folk-electronic music since 2020 when I discovered the album Orbit and they have been a firm fixture on my turntable and in my Bluetooth headphones in my life ever since. Knowing that the band are unlikely to play in the UK anytime soon, but with some gigs lined up in their native Denmark to promote their new album Dawning Eyes, my partner and I decided to indulge in some gig tourism and head to Odense to see them play at Dexter (named after jazz tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon).
Odense is a city of wide streets and low buildings. We wandered through Munke Mose park full of Danish people enjoying the sunshine and along the meandering river passed the fish ladder. Odense (pronounced Oh-den-zee) is the home of Hans Christian Anderson, or as the women who ran the excellent Skatehouse shop said, “that fairytale stuff”. We drank Flying Couch beer at Christian Firtal as the afternoon sun warmed the red bricks that are ubiquitous in the town, drank tea by the harbour at Nordatlantisk Hus and cocktails at the indoor street food Storms Parkhus and stumbled across a folk jam in the bar of Filmværksted Odense. But the focal point was the gig at Dexter which looks like a large conventional bar when you enter, but at the back is a wall the width of the venue which ingeniously slides to one side to reveal the stage. The low ceilings and individual table lights create a great atmosphere.
Support act Sasha Adrian took the bulk of her set from her October 2024 EP Shell which is a set of warm indie-pop songs in the same postcode as artists like Sharon Van Etten and Courtney Barnett. Tonight, she is performing solo. As she switched between nylon and electric guitars it brought out the darker elements of certain songs such as ‘Free of You’ which soars on the EP but became powerfully intimate when stripped back to just her tremulous voice and guitar. She held the audience in thrall from the opening number and even managed to encourage them into shouting along with the line “cold-blooded killer” on the track ‘IMDb’.
Sasha Adrian set list: Free of You | Shell | New Woman (unreleased) | Appointment | Needles (unreleased) | Adult | IMDb | Roadkill (unreleased)
Tonight, Death Machine’s core members of Jesper Mogensen (vocals & guitar), Sven Busck Andersen (drums), Morten Vinther Ørberg (bass and guitar) and Simon Christensen (keyboards) were joined by Julie Dybvad* (vocals and guitar) and Per Vilhelm (keyboards and vocals). I already thought the band’s recorded sound was widescreen but the additional musicians and live atmosphere made everything cinemascope. They opened with three tracks from Dawning Eyes, the swirling ‘Opium Wound’ with its repeating Japanese keyboard motif and crashing chords, ‘Beat the Drum’ which bounces along like a space hopper’s dream, and the haunting piano refrain of ‘Vending Machine’.
Peppered between new songs were tracks from previous albums Cocoon and Orbit. The audience were taken on a blissed out spaceship ride through Death Machine’s folk-electronic galaxy with an outstanding selection such as the processional ‘Cocoon’, the autumnal delights of ‘Bring it Back’, ‘Isle of Mine’ and ‘Bleak’ (one of my favourites) which all crackle like a roaring campfire on a cold night. Towards the end of the set the mutual appreciation between musicians and audience was palpable and ‘Modern Man’, the standout track on Dawning Eyes, brings a huge cheer. ‘Up’ and ‘Papercuts’ close the set leaving people uplifted and full of smiles as they headed to the merch stand.
Death Machine are exceptional musicians who made the complexity of their playing sound effortless. Wonderful soaring synths, heart-breaking piano, rotating guitar riffs, dual chord lines and solid drums holding the core together as the bass part of the rhythm section danced around the root notes. But the great revelation was the two voices that were made for each other like peanut butter and jam. Jesper Mogensen has one of my favourite voices and often doubles his own vocals and harmonies but tonight, when combined with the beautiful voice of Julie Dybvad true magic happened. If you know the sound of Feist singing with Kings of Convenience on Riot on an Empty Street then it was every bit as fabulous as both singers resonated together creating one voice out of two.
Denmark is a long way to travel to see if a band can deliver live what you have loved on record for years and it’s simple to say that they exceeded my hopes and unlocked a new level of appreciation for the music in me.
Death Machine set list: Opium Wound | Beat the drum | Vending Machine | Cocoon | Bring it back | Isle of Mine | First blood | Found a House | Bleak | Maze | Days | Dawning Eyes | Tied | Years | Modern man | Up | Papercuts.
Death Machine: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
Sasha Adrian: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | Bluesky
* It was only at the show that I realised I had previously reviewed Julie Dybvad’s music in her incarnation as Schön Schein and an EP of the same name. Apparently more music is coming which makes me very happy indeed.
Review by Paul F Cook
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