gazelle twin: pastoral

The new album by Gazelle Twin exhumes England's rotten past and shines a torch over its ever-darkening present. 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'." Four years in the making, this is her first major release since her widely acclaimed LP Unflesh (2014) and Kingdom Come (2017). 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 Elizabeth 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. Set against a verdant backdrop of hedgerows and steeples, Gazelle Twin 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.