The cover of Gazelle Twin’s new album Unflesh makes you aware that something sinister is lurking within. The cover shows Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) in her trademark blue hoodie with a menacing Cenobite jaw with most of her face eaten away. Unfleshed... Unsettling, disturbing, creepy… and I haven’t even pressed play.
Once you do press play the dark vibe gleaned from the album art is echoed within the music. Twin have created an eerie, electronic voyage, filled with spooky atmospherics and more twisted vocal manipulations than are found on most Sci-fi movies. The music emphasizes a lo-fi sound which Bernholz says was intentional in order for the material to transfer to live shows easier.
Unflesh starts with its title track dropping a deep and nasty percussive barrage that wouldn't be out of place on a Front Line Assembly album. The concussive industrial beat smashes behind Bernholz’s ghostly spoken vocals that are delivered with a deliberate hypnotic cadence. Meanwhile electronic sounds drone, spudder, wheeze and cough closing in around them. Amidst this gray aural palette are vocal flourishes of laughing, breathing, chorus and other articulated convolutions. Twin unravel a striking, distinctively creative and beautiful concoction of sounds that permeate throughout the album.
It is pretty clear to me if Bernholz gets tired of making music (NOOOooo!) she could have a promising career scoring horror films. That bring me to the next song ‘GUTS’. This track is full of contorted and twisted vocals that whisper, mutate and linger like floating specters. The vocals are are always evolving, devolving and eroding into something strange and unsettling. Bernholz occasionally reminds me of Karin Dreijer Andersson from the Knife with some strong, vocal moments that soar with an impassioned grit and intensity. Musically there are plenty of industrial clangs and the occasional cymbal and snare loop. Ghastly and captivating.
Next ‘Exorcise’ creates a palpable tension with strained keyboard tones and bewildered vocal samples that often sound like their detonation is imminent. By comparison, “Good Death’ seems slow and methodical with soft, whispering vocals and downtuned snaps and pops. The keyboards sound is motion, as if they are being blown by the wind. Then there is the lucid tapper ‘Anti Body’. The song has a sputtery five beat pattern that Bernholz matches with her trippy vocal delivery. The words are cold and provocative:
“When you want to break/ All the things you love / Thinking it's OK/ Cutting into flesh/ Til the loop returns/ Everything is black/ Now that you confess”.
Sullen synth looms in and out with a mournful hum. Twin makes this dark pulsating delivery work. Even as dreary and macabre as the song feels, the song is still catchy. ‘Child’, ‘Premonition’ ‘A1 Receptor’ come across like a series of dreamy atmospheric vignettes. The songs ooze a strong cinematic vibe. I envision blurred shadowy figures, shambling about a dark foggy landscape. Bernholz’s blends her foreboding aural phantasmagoria with moving vocal whirs to create spellbinding artistry.
Thanks to ‘Belly of the Beast’ I’ll never be able to comfortably wait in line at the supermarket again. Twin uses the infamous supermarket check out beep with disturbing effect, pairing it with shuffled vocals, bassy thuds, throbbing keys with an indelible underlying clatter of atmospheric chaos. ‘Beast’ is an bold, imposing track. Unflesh ends with the forceful and compelling track ‘Still Life’. The song hits hard with dark snappy industrial percussion that sound like a thrashing electro beast. Bernholz's vocals recite like a fireside ghost story as cries from poltergeists loom, moan and shriek within the mix. The song builds to an incredibly impassioned ending with layered vocals and screams that tear a hole in the heavens. Damn.
Sometimes less feels like more. Gazelle Twin’s lo-fi gem Unflesh is perfect example of this. Bernholz’s sound embraces darkness and her impressive atmospheric creativity coerces the listener to walk amongst her savoury aural shadows. The sound is a conjured blur of mesmerizing vocals, potent low end punctuation and bleak ambient soundscapes. Turn on the overhead light and give Unflesh a play... it’s a persuasive personification of the intensity capable with electronic music.
