Gazelle Twin Live dates announced, inc Somerset House on 16 November – New album out 21 September
GAZELLE TWIN – PASTORAL
NEW ALBUM OUT 21 SEP 2018 ON ANTI-GHOST MOON RAYLIVE DATES ANNOUNCED,
INCLUDING SOMERSET HOUSE ON 16 NOV
Gazelle Twin releases her eagerly anticipated, acclaimed new album, Pastoral on Anti-Ghost Moon Ray this Friday, 21 September 2018 and has announced a series of live dates. Described by The Quietus recently as “… easily the most haunting performance of the festival, if not the summer”, Gazelle Twin’s live shows include a co-headliner with GAIKA in Brighton on 11 October, and Somerset House on 16 November, part of their Assembly series.
GAZELLE TWIN LIVE
22 Sep – Station Narva Festival, Narva EE
27 Sep – Rough Trade East instore, London UK
3 Oct – New Theatre, Warsaw PL (Kingdom Come performance)
5 Oct – Soup Kitchen, Manchester UK
11 Oct – Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton UK, with GAIKA
16 Nov – Somerset House, Lancaster Rooms, London UK
PRAISE FOR PASTORAL
“…belongs to a proud tradition of English satire, plumbing the depths of the nation’s psyche and twisting it to wryly discomforting ends.“ – Pitchfork
“…nails its uncompromising colours to the mast from the off“ – 8* The Line of Best Fit
“…an abrasive and deeply unsettling listen – 9* Loud & Quiet
“…an astonishing piece of work“ – Electronic Sound
“…it takes serious mettle and a gimlet eye to make an album like this“ – 4* MOJO
“Bound to shake your walls and rattle your windows” – Max Reinhardt, BBC Radio 3
“…could be her best to date” – The Quietus
“Will likely be one of the year’s very best records.” – Clash
“…a masterpiece that feels timeless” – 5* The Skinny
Told through a troupe of multi-gender voices, in vernaculars old and new; from the shrill echo of folksong to tabloid-tinged jaunts, the artist presents the notion that “there is horror in every idyll, and danger lurking beyond the “quaint” ”. The village square – once host to centuries of public torture – becomes a floral framed postcard, dolled-up for the Summer Fête. A sunny, afternoon walk over the hills unsettles a cloud of angry flies feeding from unidentifiable remains. Bigoted vitriol gently murmurs amidst tearoom chatter, as the neatly framed pastoral picture dissolves into a solemn ennui.
Forged in a rural idyll in Middle-England and four years in the making amidst life-changing events, including a move far out of the city, Pastoral will be the first major release by Gazelle Twin since her widely acclaimed LP UNFLESH (2014, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) and is seamlessly on-theme, together with Bernholz’s J.G. Ballard-inspired A/V show ’Kingdom Come’ (soundtrack released November 2017, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray) – a fascism-infused hellscape, this time set in deepest Old England.
As its sole creator, Gazelle Twin “The Composer, Musician and Producer” has crafted an album overflowing with a frenzy of traditional and contemporary musical tropes; from early music instrumentation – the harpsichord and the humble recorder, fed through myriad electronics – to the compelling, ritualistic application of found sample-looping. Beyond Bernholz’s signature choral-infusions, here reverberating like a warped Sunday Service, there are even shades of ‘90s house and the once-thriving rural rave scene, albeit recalled as a watery, second-hand memory. In its consummation it is an album that feels pan-century, even pan-species.
Set against a verdant backdrop of hedgerows and steeples, Gazelle Twin “The Artist and Performer”, constructs an eccentric and commanding visual embodiment of all-of-the-above – a costume fit for a court Jester of the 21st Century. The colours of Neo-Nationalism. Coke cans, and DANGER. “It” (not “she”) hints at folkloric traditions with a footy mascot twist. The “Ye Olde” and “The Everyman” of the English cliché. Brandishing a sneer and a hobby horse. A riddle and a recorder. A jeer and a square dance in red, Adidas Gazelle’s, and a mad, fixed GRIN – first glimpsed in the single, ‘Hobby Horse’ (22 June, Anti-Ghost Moon Ray).
A deranged, absurd reflection of deranged and absurd times.
FURTHER LISTENING:
The video for Hobby Horse, directed by long-time collaborator Chris Turner, firmly puts the album’s themes – exhuming England’s rotten past and showing its ever-darkening present – into focus. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/anM7ZcNBoFw
Glory / Gallows on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4krCjYU1R05WYYBATwNpE5?si=C7h89XcuSfiHA_WQCezonw
Hobby Horse / Deep England on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/3nhbyUgnNlTdQHfBuVVioD?si=xtmgFDnXSRK4agEgjMGYNQ
Pre-order the album: https://gazelletwin.bandcamp.com/
For press and guestlist enquiries, please contact Zoe Miller – zoe.miller@zopfpr.com
High res press photographs – https://we.tl/t-XPLNfIfnPK
Pastoral is released on 21 September 2018, on Anti-Ghost Moon Ray (cat number AGMR035), and is gratefully supported through the PRS Foundation Momentum Fund.