During the creative-depressing era of pandemic lockdown, St. Louis musicians Gary Schmidt and Deanna Sorenson met through a virtual songwriting collective. Like the beginnings of many great origins, the fruit of their artistic partnership flowered from that darkness, leading from project to project and landing with the current Last Dance. With influences spanning from Charli xcx’s legendary Brat Summer to the sounds of the Early and High Middle Ages, the electronica band explores states of music past, present and future through back-and-forth collaboration and appreciation.
“It’s always an evolution,” Schmidt said about the project’s genre and style.
Schmidt formed the idea of what would become Last Dance from wanting to make something electronic-focused, as A. G. Cook’s production work and trends in hyperpop impacted him. His previous project, Macaron Afterparty, to which Sorenson contributed, served as a gateway to the world of ambient, solo-work music.
Regarding the emergence of Last Dance on the aesthetic level, that alternative atmosphere comes to life with the presence that the artists try to capture. With the group’s name, for example, Sorenson said, “We wanted to evoke the image of a dance, or of being at a place where you go to dance, but with a melancholy air—like you know this is your last dance with someone, or the last hurrah, before reality sets in.” Their cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” captures that surreal moment with its alterations to the familiar new-wave pop tune.
The duo’s most recent streaming release is an LP titled Seven Sisters, an 11-track album involving celestially layered vocals, high- and mid-tempo beats, and synthesizer-centered ambience. Conceptualized by Schmidt, the Greek mythology of the Pleiades—seven divine sister figures—inspired him to write songs based on each one. With Macaron Afterparty being disbanded, he invited Sorenson onto the work of Seven Sisters, and the two mapped out the record’s other songs.
“It would be fascinating to listen to the old tracks to see what they became,” Sorenson said about how they ended up reworking the songs. Though Schmidt began working on the album early on in Last Dance’s existence, the band finished the production several years later due to that artistic process of reshaping the music until it fit the vision as a whole.
Schmidt and Sorenson expressed their hope to complete their next large project—one that finds an influence from music of the medieval period—in less time. But that doesn’t mean that Last Dance is stopping while they work on that venture, as the duo has already put out a new song called “Pearl’s Dream,” a cover of a song from the 1995 film The Night of the Hunter, on Bandcamp. With a DIY experimental music video of this track and plans to release it on streaming services on the way, alternative-electronic St. Louis fans won’t have to wait for more.
One of Last Dance’s hopes for their future, according to Schmidt, is to “have a stronger stage presence.” He said that what they try their best to do is have “a live performance that is engaging to the crowd […] Because we’re queuing a lot of backing tracks, it’s important to us to have some sort of element that we’re performing live. I’d like to increase that more for this next album.”
In terms of upcoming live performances, the band looks forward to their show on September 17 at the new Dissonant Works space, as they support Nashville musician Luke Schneider and local project Two Hands | One Engine.
As members of the St. Louis scene, both musicians commented on their appreciation of being a part of the experience.
Sorenson said that she’s actively trying “to be grateful that we can record our own music and put it out,” and perform her art in a time when oversaturation and technology present, in some ways, an intimidating scope of musicianship.
“Music and art on the macro level is so disjointed from what it feels like to be a part of our local community,” Schmidt said, referencing doubt in industry aspects such as streaming distribution. “I think it just brings everything back down to the local level, and that is what matters most— the human relationships and the experiences that you’re getting here and now.”
Checkout Last Dance here: https://lastdancetheband.bandcamp.com/
Photos: Cory Weaver