.
Gazelle Twin/Sealionwoman, Bush Hall, London, November 2023 – Where to start? Somewhere down in Shepherd’s Bush on a cold November Friday night kind of thinking I’d rather be back East throwing paint at canvas than on the other side of town hands deep in pockets rushing along the Uxbridge Road and heading for another gig. Black dogs indeed, but we are here for Gazelle Twin and it may be colder and darker than that wondrous mid Summer encounter with her and NYX earlier this year but surely tonight is going to be worth it? Expectations are high although we have no idea what we’re going to get? A performance of the new album I guess but how on earth is she’s going to pull that off!?
Before anything else, how friendly are the Bush Hall door staff, what nice people, so welcoming, do like Bush Hall, like being inside one of Emma Harvey‘s cake paintings. Feels like just the right time and place for Gazelle Twin to be performing her just released Black Dog album, the perfect night, all rain, all edgy street and heads down, avoid everyone, get inside the big cake and the warm feeling of a black stout and that most friendly of welcomes and there just in time for Sealionwoman to do their thing…
.
Sealionwoman are a two piece, Kitty Whitelaw and Tye McGivern, they’re perfectly suited to the evening, to this time and place, all drenched in washes of pale blue, pink or violet. Too warm to be stark, kind of stark though, exposed, extremely enticing, beguiling, deliciously experimental without ever being too difficult. A sound that comes from somewhere deep, double bass player Tye McGivern the perfect foil for that rich dark torch-song voice of Kitty Whitelaw and the slow moving drama of all she offers. It almost feels like some kind of ritual as it almost echos around the old Edwardian dancehall. It was about being there, being with the siren calls, with the depth of that heavy double bass, the slow draw of the bow, the rumbling infrasonics, the drama of his sounds and her voice, her words, the whole thing calling you, the richness of the two of them just right as an opener for Gazelle Twin and very warmly received by a very appreciative audience.
.
There’s real anticipation in the air for Gazelle Twin, we’re waiting ni the red light, she’s surely exposed now? Not so much of the hiding behind her various personas, her costumes, this Black Dog episode feels more inward looking, more personal, it feels brave, it feel raw, ambitious, bold. And when you see her sitting there in her armchair, it almost feels like we’re imposing, that we maybe shouldn’t be here just watching…
Previously, when she’s put on her tracksuit and got on her hobby horse or she’s stood there in a line with NYX, it has felt like performance. And yes, plenty of artists have written about depression, but here she takes on the persona, a far deeper inward looking persona, far deeper than anything she’s previously taken on. She actually takes on the persona of depression, by being a woman exhausted in her chair as she personifies it and then wrestles with it right there in front of us. Putting on a costume is incredibly powerful, but this is going somewhere else. Is she wearing a suit up there? Is it actually pyjamas? Is she on stage in her pyjamas, sitting there in her chair and pyjamas fighting the black dog as if she’s at home on her own wrestling it (as many do). This is an incredible performance, a very personal, very powerful performance, you kind of want to stop it, get up there and hug her, but it is just performance right? This is theatre?
.
And as theatre it looks and sounds brilliant, this is not a rock gig, this is something beyond that, not a gig, something more, something different. There’s one or two people calling out for familiar songs but most are transfixed, most are there with her. As an audience we’re holding our breath, we’re not moving, it almost feels wrong to cheer but the cheers are massive. She’s up there with her ghosts, the things she could see, this feels as much an Elizabeth Bernholz performance as a Gazelle Twin one. This is gaunt, shimmering, the sound is rich, dark, those electronic loops and those synths, that standard lamp and that chair, those shadows, that voice, quiet then loud but never forced, nothing feels forced, but what a voice, oh that voice! Captivating.
.
This tonight, on top of the album itself and that Midsummer show at the Barbican, this year is just cementing her place as one of the very important artists of the right here right now, of these (fractured) times and if this was just a gig then it was a very special one, but it wasn’t just a gig was it, this was something more and yes, worth every second of effort, this was something much more… Wow! (SW)
Sealionwoman / Gazelle Twin – Bandcamp / Website / Black Dog album review / Midsummer
THE ORGAN 
Leave a comment