Gazelle Twin

In Bourbon And Regency Times Masked Balls Were A Milieu Of Liberation Allowing People To Shed Their Own Inhibitions The Strictures Of Society And Inhabit Different Personae For A Night. In The 21st Century The Same Can Apply In Pop. Fittingly Biographical Details About Gazelle Twin – A Shadowy Entity Who Creates Unsettlingly Beautiful Hypnotically Haunting Musical Art With A Capital 'A' - Are Scant. The Gazelle Twin Is – Or Perhaps More Accurately Is Not – Elizabeth Walling. As A Child She Was “a Bit Sensitive Anxious Maybe A Bit Too Reflective”. And For Now That Is Already Quite Enough. Gazelle Twin Is A Refreshingly Discreet Secretive Animal In A World Where New Female Starlets No Sooner Fall Off The Conveyor Belt Than Clamour To Reveal Everything About Their Tedious Private Lives Even Their Physiques In Song And Interview Photograph And Film. “I Hate The Way ” Walling Explains “that Most Female Artists Face A Minimum Requirement To Appear Sexually Available... Not That Sex Is Wrong But There's So Much More To A Person Isn't There?” From The Start Elizabeth Walling Has Utilised The Anonymity Provided By Costumes Masquerade-Like To Assist In Her Performance. “The Original Reason ” She Acknowledges “is That I'm Quite Shy And With My Face On Show I'd Be Inclined To Be Meek And Apologetic.” Nevertheless Walling Does Not Hide Herself In Masks And Headdresses Merely To Present An 'alter Ego' Or 'dark Side Of The Self' Or Anything So Banal. Rather Than An Exercise In Vulgar Emotional Exhibitionism Gazelle Twin Constitutes Says Walling “a Retreat Inwards” Crossing Boundaries Of Identity And Gender Even Genus. Of Her Spectacular Stage Costumes She Says “They Are Different Disguises Through Which I'm Trying To Render My Femininity Masculinity Or Just My Species Either Absent Or Warped.” Her First Attempt Involved A Feathery Tentacled Suit Inspired By Loplop The Recurring Quasi-Avian Figure Which Appears In The Art Of Surrealist Painter Max Ernst. “It’s Not Really A Bird ” Explains Walling “more Like A Cross Between An Octopus A Spectre And Some Sort Of Pagan Or Regal Costume From Elizabethan England”. It Was She Admits “a Bit Ropey I Ended Up Looking Like Zoidberg” But This Shapeshifter Is Already Moving On To Other Things. To Date The Gazelle Twin Discography Consists Of Only Two Items The Single “Changelings” Released Last Year On Something Nothing Records And Backed With An Imaginatively Lateral-Thinking Cover Of “I Wonder U” By Prince The Minneapolitan Genius Being An Acknowledged Obsession Of Walling's Especially His Strange Backwards Beats Circa Purple Rain And Parade . The Second Is Another Single “I Am Shell I Am Bone” Due In April On Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records A New Indie Label And Blog Set Up With Fellow Brighton Musicians. Already These Recordings Have Earned Acclaim Everywhere From Time Out To The Guardian To Metro To Diva Magazine And Drawn Comparisons To Bjork Elizabeth Fraser Siouxsie Lamb Portishead Goldfrapp Kate Bush And Fever Ray. The Last Two Are Particularly Pertinent It Was Bush Who Provided Walling With The Blueprint For Presenting 'classical' Music In A Pop Context And Karin Dreijer Andersson Who Both In Fever Ray And The Knife Inspired Her Visual Boldness. Gazelle Twin's Atmospheric Avant-Garde Sounds Are Often Deeply Cinematic – One Can Imagine Them Scoring Lynch's Eraserhead Or Lang's Metropolis – And This Is No Coincidence. Between The Crucially Formative Ages Of 17 And 25 She Never Listened To Pop And Became Engrossed Instead In Studying Choral And Film Music “the Gnarly Plinky-Plonky Stuff Unsettling But Also Euphoric”. Brad Fiedel The Composer Responsible For The Mood Music While Arnie Schwarzenegger Kicked Cyberpunk Ass In The Terminator Movies Is A Particular Favourite And Walling Indeed Nearly Pursued A Career In Film Music . Sci-Fi Looms Large In Gazelle Twin's Aesthetic. “I Pretty Much Watched Aliens Every Day From The Age Of 10 To 14. I Love The Materials The Goo It's All Very Sensual. And I Like Ominous Projections Of The Future Like JG Ballard. I'm Inspired By Bleak Landscapes Industrial Things...” A Somewhat More Archaic And Arcane Influence Is Carlo Gesualdo A 16th/17th Century Italian Composer Whose Bizarre Guilt-Wracked Madrigals She Encountered While Working On A Commission For Brighton Early Music Festival. All Of Which Will Feed In To The Gazelle Twin's Debut Album The Entire City Named After A Painting By The Aforementioned Ernst And Due For Release In July. It Will Possess Walling Promises A “focussed Dreamlike Intensity” And Aim To Be An “unusual Emotional Danceable Memorable Frightening” Listen. There Will Be Concerts Too. The First And So Far Only Gazelle Twin Live Happening Took Place At The Now-Defunct Shunt Vaults Under London Bridge Station But Walling Has Ambitious Plans For Future Shows Involving Every Member Of The Band Being As Extravagantly Attired As Herself. It Will She Promises Be “an Immersive Audio-Visual Experience Very Different From A Usual 'gig' Vibe – More Like A Dream Or Hallucination.” It Will Doubtless Also Involve Her Self-Made Short Films. So Far These Have Been Exercises In No-Budget Improvisation With Old Horror Movies Scuba Video Of Manta Rays And Home-Made Webcam Footage Edited Together On Her Laptop. For The Third Single “Men Like Gods” However She's Pushed The Boat Out With A Proper Shoot In Sardinia Involving A Bizarre Wicker Man-Esque Pagan Ritual “with Bells And Furs And Masks And Skins And Bonfires.” The One Certain Thing About Gazelle Twin Is That Nothing Is Certain. The Aesthetic Is An Ever-Developing Thing “I Want It To Change All The Time. I Intend The Thing To Constantly Morph Into Different Areas...” Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? It May Have Feathers And It May Have Wings But It's Neither Of Those Things. And Whatever You've Decided Gazelle Twin Is That's Probably What It Was Five Minutes Ago While Elizabeth Walling Was Already Planning Her Next Move. read less