"Towed cars, unscrewed mailboxes, a Hessian medieval district in complete darkness for three days and dozens of people shuffling across the towns’ pavements, wearing early modern garments and mumbling", explains an enthusiastic Alex Schopbach (City of Gelnhausen), just to give you a brief glimpse of the incredible efforts that were needed to produce the video clip for ‘Cleansed By Fire’, the opening track of the LINGUA MORTIS ORCHESTRA debut album »LMO«. Together with Tine Link, a friend of the band, Alex was the main part of the production team, which, with the help of the fire department, building yard and city administration managed to transport parts of the historic old town back into the year 1599. That was a truly dark year for the Kinzigtal town (set between Vogelsberg and Spessart), which was newly found in 1170 by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, as the pastor's widow Elisabeth Strupp was killed by the sword of an executioner under the orders of the mayor and witch hunter Johann Strupp.
Based on these historic facts and supported by his research in the town archives, Peter „Peavy“ Wagner, singer, bassist and lyricist for the LINGUA MORTIS ORCHESTRA took this extraordinary story, turning it into words for the concept album »LMO«.
Nuclear Blast and the city of Gelnhausen started working together in July. Alex Schopbach from the Gelnhausen department of public relations comments with most praiseful words: „From the very start we liked the fact that Peavy took on this very serious historic theme without any grandstanding, referring to the memorials in Gelnhausen, which even today are reminiscent of the persecution of witches.” The label itself is equally thrilled with this collaboration: “Working together has been a success right from the beginning. We got features in medieval and historical magazines, support from the local daily magazines, even TV stations reported about the video shoot and introduced the band to a complete new audience”, states Markus Wosgien, head of promotion at Nuclear Blast.
To boost the visual presentation of the history of witch hunting and execution in the city of Gelnhausen, the town tour guides and numerous extras were present alongside the LINGUA MORTIS ORCHESTRA to shoot the video of ‘Cleansed By Fire’. The three-day shoot peaked on the final evening, when an additional 200 extras from the local region appeared, to act as the townspeople of Gelnhausen of 1599. Recruited via Facebook, they arrived just as work was about to start and were handed out historic garments from the town fundus, that offers some thousand sets of cloths.
The video for ‘Cleansed By Fire’ premiered this past Friday, November 22, 2013 at Gelnhausen town hall. Executive producer Tine Link found the right words at the premiere celebration, attended by 500 people, to praise the miracle work of all involved: “There are lots of wizards living in Gelnhausen. You made everything possible that was needed here.”
The video is available at the homepage of the city of Gelnhausen, under the following link: http://www.gelnhausen.de/Cleansed-by-fire-Lingua-Mortis-Orches.900.0.html
The LINGUA MORTIS ORCHESTRA will return to Gelnhausen on July 5, 2014 for an open air show during the first Gelnhäuser Sommerfestival, alongside HAGGARD, that will take place at Müllerwiese between Kaiserpfalz and Kinzig. More infos about the event under www.gelnhausen.de and www.facebook.de/gelnhausen.erleben .
LINGUA MORTIS ORCHESTRA – Live:
18.12. D Stuttgart - LKA Lohnhorn
19.12. D Memmingen - Stadthalle Memmingen
20.12. D Nürnberg - Löwensaal
21.12. D Köln - Essigfabrik
22.12. D Langen - Neue Stadthalle