An unexpected start to the day in the shape of a live EP of Black Dog material from Gazelle Twin, and of course we’re always listening, there is always beauty in her bleakness. We’ve covered her Black Dog album rather a lot, it was our album of the year in 2023 and well you probably need to start there if you haven’t explore her black dogs – ORGAN THING: There is so much here, so much up those dark dark stairs, up there with her black dog, Gazelle Twin’s darkly beautiful new album unwrapped… These are, well I want to say beautiful versions, well yes, they are beautiful, they are right there as anyone who’s seen her perform Black Dog will tell you and these recording do have that magic of the live experience, that sound hanging in the air, in the dust of the stage lights, in the knowling glances from strangers sharing the experience with you. You are right back there in the Bush Hall or wherever you may have seen her remarkable performances of her mosr recent album.

Four live tracks, four vital slices and yes you do need the peace of mind, you need to promise you’ll keep quiet and listen, these live versions are rather like standing in a gallery, oblivious to anything and everything, looking at a painting that matters, lost in a Turner, a Rothko, you don’t quite have the conversations you have with the paintings, it is more about the listening here, but it does travel to you in that same way, that just for you way. Hey look, I’ve gushed about Gazelle Twin’s art again and again, once again these recording will tell you why…

Find it on Bandcamp

Previous Gazelle Twin coverage on these pages

Hang on, Stop press. A press release about the release has now landed, we had already posted the bits above but hey, let’s see what officialdome as to say on a we Friday lunch time. The headline news is “BRITISH LIBRARY PERFORMANCE WITH LCO ON 1 NOV, OPENING THEIR TALES OF THE WEIRD SEASON”

“Composer, producer, and visual artist Elizabeth Bernholz – aka Gazelle Twin – today shares a new EP, Black Dog Live, out now via Invada Records. The new EP features four tracks recorded live at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton on the Black Dog tour, and comes accompanied by two evocative performances from the ACCA show.

Bernholz explains, “Our performance at ACCA to a warm and welcoming audience felt significant in the journey of this album and tour. Strange coincidences and happenings also occurred during the making period in the space, which is on the site of the University of Sussex, that I attended some 18 years prior. These loops, cycles and ghostly encounters are a deeply embedded theme in the album, and so I feel extremely grateful to be able to release these songs.”

A unique Black Dog performance has just been announced for the British Library, London on 1 November. Taking place at the grand entrance hall of the Grade I British Library, one of the largest libraries in the world, Black Dog will be reworked by Gazelle Twin and Max de Wardener with the London Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ames (their second collaboration after working together on The Power and the Glory with the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2022). The specially commissioned performance opens the British Library’s new season, Tales of the Weird: An Autumnal Festival, a celebration of strange, uncanny and horror, and attendees for the event will be able to see the new British Library exhibition, Medieval Women: in their own words included in the event ticket. Arrive early to meet these women from another time, through rare manuscripts, letters and records. The Black Dog tour, which recently saw Gazelle Twin play Rewire, Donau and Simple Things festivals, continues on 30 August with an appearance at Supersonic Festival in Birmingham. 

The new EP features tracks from Gazelle Twin’s fourth studio album, the acclaimed Black Dog (2023), an album about confronting fear – supernatural, collective, and personal. Across the EP four new versions of ‘Two Worlds’, ‘Fear Keeps Us Alive’, ‘A Door Opens’ and ‘Unstoppable Force’ present the audience with a raw, visceral take on the original and two videos from the ACCA in Brighton illustrate the unique world this remarkable artist conjures.
Watch live films for two very different sides to the album: the fierce and uncompromising anger of ‘Unstoppable Force’, and the hopeful heart bursting ballad, ‘A Door Opens’, both featuring visuals by Dan Conway.

Later this month, Factory International will present Robin/Red/Breast, at Aviva Studios, Manchester. The production – featuring music by Gazelle Twin – has been co-created by Maxine Peake, Sarah Frankcom and Imogen Knight, in collaboration with Daisy Johnson and Gazelle Twin, and is a chilling new retelling of John Bowen’s cult TV playRobin Redbreast, often cited as the precursor to The Wicker Man – more information HERE. Gazelle Twin and Maxine Peake recently collaborated on an audio installation We Wax. WeShall Not Wane, commissioned by Somerset House, London, for The Horror Show Exhibition in 2022. The digital release is available HERE.

Later this year, the British horror film, Saint Maud – written by Jessica Andrews (Saltwater, Milk Teeth) – adapted for stage with music by Gazelle Twin, will open at the Live theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne. Further information HERE.