when I was otherwise

Gazelle Twin (aka. Brighton-based musician/artist Elizabeth Walling) came out of nowhere with The Entire City, one of the best albums of the year (‘like watching someone else’s escapist fantasies through a gauze, or a shroud’).  Walling was in NYC early this fall. This is part of our conversation:

‘I had a vision of the music and I knew I wanted there to be an electronic element, I knew I wanted it to be intense and cinematic and with that, I knew that I need a counterpart, visually that would suit it across the board… so with the artwork, the videos, and the live shows I knew that I wanted it all to be quite intensive, connected and relevant and that was partly because I had been inspired by artists like Fever Ray, who at the time for me was the only persona for me where everything felt really cohesive as a project and before that I felt very disillusioned about how you connect your image… especially as a female artist. how can you connect with the music that you’re making?… my problem was to make music that was really epic, emotional, and dark… but visually came from something. That was when I started going back to my roots and studying art, (the) work that I knew that I loved…’

‘I think the realization that I have been influenced by something probably happens later when a song is finished and it’s existing and I’m living with it and it’s a third thing. Then I probably notice that it’s an influence. I mean, something like the Prince cover (‘I wonder U‘) and the cover I did of a Joy Division song (‘The Eternal’) are clearly direct influences I wanted to explore on the offset, but the more obscure classical things are just there and they come out at their will.’

ps. Gazelle Twin has recently remixed John Foxx here and…..just wrote this marvelously strange,beautiful article at the Quietus.

Photograph by Gazelle Twin.