BLACK DOG
WITH THE LONDON CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA
British Library, LONDON 1 Nov 2024
For a specially-commissioned performance at the British Library on 1 November 2024, Gazelle Twin collaborated with composer Max de Wardener in arranging songs from her critically acclaimed 2023 album, ‘Black Dog’ for the London Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Hugh Brunt.
With an opening performance from Laura Cannell, the event marked the launch of the ‘Medieval Women’ exhibition at the British Library from 2024 - 2025. Projected visuals, staging and lighting were provided by Dan Conway. Live sound was by Simon Hendry. The event was co-produced by LCO and Nathalie Blue.
Photos by Liz Naomi.
ROBIN/RED/BREAST
MAXINE PEAKE. SARAH FRANCKOM. IMOGEN KNIGHT. DAISY JOHNSON.
FACTORY INTERNATIONAL, MANCHESTER 2024
“There is a section played on headphones and, best of all, a brass band in virginal white skirts and blood-red tunics. They are otherworldly onlookers, their music, scored by Gazelle Twin, at once ancient, familiar and strange.” THE GUARDIAN
A theatrical re-telling of the 1970s TV play Robin Redbreast, by John Bowen, ROBIN/RED/BREAST was an original production from Maxine Peake, Sarah Frankcom, Imogen Knight (MAAT), writerDaisy Johnson and Gazelle Twin. This largescale audio-visual performance encompassed themes of bodily autonomy, power and rebirth told through intertwining stories of women in interpolating timelines.
Working alongside sound designer Pete Malkin, Gazelle Twin composed an experimental electro-acoustic score, featuring an all-female brass ensemble, whose live performances in the show were fused with looped and electronically manipulated brass samples, with ethereal electronic and vocal soundscapes. Brass arrangements were made by Carol Jarvis.
The performance ran during May 2024 at Aviva Studios, Manchester.
WE WAX. WE SHALL NOT WANE
THE HORROR SHOW
SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON 2022
The Guardian ★★★★★
An audio Installation by Gazelle Twin, featuring Maxine Peake, originally commissioned by Somerset House for the 2022 large-scale exhibition, ‘The Horror Show’ Exhibition curated by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, and Claire Catterall. Taking place at the Embankment Galleries, Somerset House from October 2022 - Feb 2023.
The 45 minute looping, spatial sound audio installation ‘We Wax. We Shall Not Wane’ was presented as sonic meditation and cathartic lament to women lost to violence through the centuries and who continue to be, in the present day. The installation was mixed by Elizabeth Bernholz, David Sheppard and John Best (LOSS»GAIN) using D&B Soundscape / Spatial audio.
The texts are an amalgamation of early documentation from Agnes Sampson’s Healing Charm (1591) excerpts from by Ben Jonson’s The Witches’ charms from The Masque of Queens (1609), and Bernholz’s own.
We Wax. We Shall Not Wane was remixed for digital release in 2024, with art work featuring typography by Johnathan Barnbrook.
Collage from ‘The Horror Show’ by exhibition designers Barnbrook Studio.
We Wax. We Shall Not Wane’ Installation room photo by Tim Bowditch
deep england
nyx ELECTRONIC DRONE CHOIR. 2018-2023
“It’s a tapestry of contradictions: human voice and digital manipulation, political aggression and private compassion, rural harmony and secret violence, folk and electronica. It is in the fusing of these contradictions that NYX and Gazelle Twin’s music lies. '“ - NEW STATESMAN
‘Deep England’ was a 5 year-long music and performance collaboration with NYX Collective, originally based on Gazelle Twin’s 2018 album ‘Pastoral’. Working with NYX’s musical director Sian ‘O Gorman, the songs of ‘Pastoral’ were expanded into a set of electrified choral works featuring multiple female voices and electronics, together with a new work by NYX. Deep England has been supported by Serious’ Giant Steps, a talent development scheme funded by Help Musicians, Arts Council England, and the Serious Trust.
From its first outing in December 2018 at London’s Oval Space, the performance was re-mounted as a large-scale production for the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre in November 2019 (London Jazz Festival) with support from , with staging and costume design by Chloe Lamford, movement direction by Imogen Knight and sound by Peter Rice. The album was recorded for release in 2021 for which it received critical acclaim. ‘Deep England’ LP was co-produced by Marta Salogni, Sian O’Gorman (NYX) and Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) with mix and additional programming by Marta Salogni, and mastering by Heba Kadry. The vocal and live performers were: Adélaïde Pratoussy, Cecilia Forssberg, Elizabeth Bernholz, Natalie Sharp, Ruth Corey, Shireen Qureshi and Sian O’Gorman. The digital, CD and Vinyl versions of the album feature illustrations by Elisa Seitzinger and fonts by Jonathan Barnbrook (Barnbrook Studio).
In 2021 Gazelle Twin and NYX worked with BAFTA nominated filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard to create a special performance film of Deep England, filmed at Shoreditch Town Hall, working with movement director Imogen Knight, sound designer Peter Rice. and lighting designer Gillian Tan. Originally filmed as part of Between the Lines Festival and supported by Arts Council England,
In 2023, the final performance of ‘Deep England’ took place in the Barbican Hall, as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration of the cult classic, ‘The Wicker Man’.
THE POWER & THE GLORY
bbc concert orchestra & Max De Wardener
New Music biennial 2019 & 2022
“a satisfying concentration of instrumental detail and dramatic urgency. Using densely nested string clusters to evoke the buzz of flies – which set the richly gothic mood – Gazelle Twin’s soaring, ecstatic melodic revelry was offset by unsettling, haunted orchestral backdrops.” - THE GUARDIAN
‘The Power and the Glory’ was commissioned by the New Music Biennial (PRS/Southbank Centre) in 2019, premiering at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London with Elizabeth Alker, and Hull Town Hall in July 2019 performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Andre de Ridder and Robert Ames. The 15 minute work was a collaboration between Gazelle Twin and Max de Wardener. which incorporated Gazelle Twin’s existing song ‘Glory’ from her critically acclaimed 2018 album ‘Pastoral’ forming the basis of a new work for voice, electronics and orchestra. In 2022 it was performed again at Coventry Cathedral for the NMB 2022.
Both performances were broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and a recording was released by NMC Recordings.
Photo by Victor Frankowski
Dress by Cimone UK
kingdom come
for two voices
future everything festival 2016
“Shrouded in the darkness of the auditorium, hoods obscuring any defining facial features, they exit through the same doors as the audience will in only a few minutes time. Watching them move, spectral and familiar in their shapelessness, they act as two-way bodiless archetypes: a glimpse into an uncertain future, and a reflection of an uncertain self in obscure times.” - THE QUIETUS
Kingdom Come was commission by Future Everything Festival, Manchester 2016. A rampaging and volatile audio-visual homage to J. G. Ballard’s last novel, ‘Kingdom Come’, for two vocalists (Natalie Sharp and Stuart Warwick), electronics and treadmills. Films by Chris Turner and Tash Tung featured as semi-VR backdrops, with live sequencing and playback by Jez Bernholz. Kingdom Come premiered at Manchester Art Gallery in March 2016, and went on to tour at Sensoria Festival, Sheffield, SONAR Festival Barcelona 2016, CTM Festival Berlin 2017, Rewire Festival NL 2017 and Brudenell Social Club, Leeds 2018.
‘METRO’ EP was released on special edition 12” Vinyl by The Vinyl Factory with sleeve design by Jonathan Barnbrook / Barnbrook Studio featuring photograhpy by Chris Turner.
Photos by Earl Wan.
Staging, costume & Music by Gazelle Twin.
FLESHED OUT
with ESTHER SPRINGETT
fierce festival / barbican centre 2015
“…It’s this anti-style and her “tasting in nerves” on second album Unflesh which brought her to The Barbican. Each red seat in the cinema was filled with a spectator, ravenous for Bernholz’s blend of festering discomfort and odd reassurance.”
GIGSLUTZ
Fleshed Out was a live performance, short film and rework LP, expanding on Gazelle Twin’s 2014 album ‘UNFLESH’. A screening and live performance took place at Barbican Centre Cinema on 25 November 2015, marking the end of the ‘UNFLESH’ world tour in November 2015. The 16 minute film was made in a collaboration with filmmaker Esther Springett (part of the Turner Prize-nominated collective Project Art Works, and who also made the music videos for Belly of the Beast and GUTS). With support from Fierce Festival Birmingham 2015, and the Barbican Centre, the film featured locations beneath spaghetti junction, Birmingham, and the Barbican estate in London and resulted in an avant-garde series of dreamlike snapshots, depicting an abstract origin story for the “blue hoody” figure, whose fleeting presence haunts real-world environments and vulnerable landscapes.
Additional screenings of Fleshed Out include: J.G. Ballard season, Rio Cinema, London, 2016, and Brighton Film Club, Patterns, 17th May 2016.
A rework LP of the same name was released shortly afterwards, and featured reworks by Carter Tutti (Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle, PERC, Blanck Mass, Zamilska, Wrangler, I Speak Machine, Don’t Look, Natalie Sharp, Dave Clarke and Vanishing.
Film Still by Esther Springett
out of body
with carla mackinnon
london short film festival 2015
“Best experienced as a unity of music and film, this album fortifies GAZELLE TWIN’s position as the gem brightly shining in the sea of mediocrity, rising well beyond anything non-metaphysical and ordinary.”
THE ELECTRICITY CLUB
Out of Body was commissioned by London Short Film Festival in 2015 who paired Gazelle Twin with animator Carla MacKinnon to create a new 30-minute film with a live soundtrack A/V performance. Developed from the core themes of Gazelle Twin’s 2014 album ‘Unflesh’, the film presented a nightmarish portrayal of female puberty, anxiety and mental health. Using (literally) raw materials including meat, organs, human hair, fake teeth, clay and fabric, MacKinnon blended her mastery of traditional stop-motion technique with digital forms, to cinematic proportions. The film served as a backdrop to a live performance of vocals and electronics by Gazelle Twin.
Out of Body premiered at the ICA London in January 2015 and toured cinemas in Bristol, Liverpool, Cork Film Festival, and at Latitude Festival 2015. The music was then released as a digital only LP.
Animation Still by Carla Mackinnon
On Vanishing Land
MArk Fisher & Justin Barton
“At its best, hauntology is much more than the mourning of defeat, an indulgence of human futility. It offers, as On Vanishing Land does, an invitation to critically reopen the past and the future and discover its weird, revolutionary potential.”
FRIEZE MAGAZINE
In 2013 The Otolith Collective and The Showroom gallery presented On Vanishing Land, an audio-essay by theorists Mark Fisher and Justin Barton featuring a 2006 walk along the Suffolk coastline from a Felixstowe container port to the Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo. Accompanying the narrated essay, is a soundtrack of specially commissioned sound art and music from Gazelle Twin, John Foxx, Baron Mordant, Dolly Dolly, Ekoplekz, Farmers of Vega, Pete Wiseman, Raime and Skjolbrot. Gazelle Twin contributed three tracks to the work, which can be heard on the official release from Hyperdub Records (Flatlines) in 2019