“It’s part Morris dancer, part demon”
Welcome to the “fraught and noisy and weird” world of Gazelle Twin, creator of one of 2018's most timely albums
“Look closer at the heritage and it’s steeped in injustice and murder” ELIZABETH BERNHOLZ
It’s the job of the artist to speak to the times in which we live, and few albums have captured how it feels to live in the UK in 2018 quite like Gazelle twin’s Pastoral. On it, Elizabeth Bernholz uses brittle electronics and effects-twisted vocals to draw a nightmarish caricature of England, raising parallels between our nation’s turbulent history and the poverty and division of the present day. “It is quite an extreme LP,” acknowledges Bernholz. “It’s fraught and noisy and weird. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the reception. People have picked up on the Brexit thing, which wasn’t the main drive. But due to the timing… it’s a hot topic.”
In fact, Pastoral – her third album as Gazelle twin – was precipitated by personal events: the birth of her son, and her relocation from Brighton to the rural West Midlands. “My life was transformed, and I felt vulnerable and anxious,” she says. “And that fused with this changing, slightly darkening world.”
“Cattle cattle/Tea rooms and roadkill/I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she keens on “tea Rooms”, while “Dance Of the Peddlers” is an unsettling blend of booming bass and medieval pipes, with a lyric that hops across centuries – from Blake to medieval torture to the phonehacking scandal. “We preserve aspects of our history that make us feel safe or happy, as if we’ve earned something,” says Bernholz. “But look closer at that heritage, which is driving this current surge of nationalism, and most of this is pretty awful – steeped in injustice and murder and blood.”
Gazelle twin’s last LP, 2014’s Unflesh, explored a Cronenbergish body horror, addressing themes like miscarriage and euthanasia. It saw Bernholz taking to the stage in a blue tracksuit, face obscured by a stocking – a nightmare vision of the school changing room. On Pastoral, where the darkness is balanced with a mischievous, antic quality, she alighted on the figure we see in the video to “Hobby Horse” – a scary jester, coloured the same blood-red as the st George’s Cross. “I was researching rural courts, and I kept seeing pictures of jesters… but I wanted to include contemporary tropes, so it’s part football hooligan, part jester, part Morris dancer, part demon.” Live, Bernholz performs with her husband Jez, who handles most of the music, allowing her to inhabit the character: “I get aggressive and quite caught up with it, which I love. I feel a real buzz.”
Gazelle twin will close 2018 with two unique concerts – a show at somerset House, appropriately a converted tudor palace by the thames; and a performance with NYX, an allfemale electronic drone choir who will be adapting some Gazelle twin songs. Beyond that, Bernholz is wondering where Gazelle twin might go next. “It’s been a relentless five years of angsty, noisy, scary work. While that’s part of my personality, there’s scope to make something prettier, more hopeful. I haven’t got a clue what it might be, though. I may just have to keep going with the doom.”