Join us for a special listening party to celebrate the release of Deep England by Gazelle Twin and NYX.
Gazelle Twin & NYX: electronic drone choir have announced details of their debut release, Deep England, an 8-track album out on vinyl, CD and digitally on 19 March 2021 via NYX Collective Records.
Rooted in English pagan and sacred music, Deep England is an electronic-choral expansion of Gazelle Twin’s 2018 album Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray). Here, tracks from Pastoral, an album whose political themes have only intensified since its original release, are radically reworked and presented alongside original compositions by NYX, Paul Giovanni and William Blake.
Gazelle Twin (aka Elizabeth Bernholz) and NYX, the electronic drone choir reshaping the role of the traditional female choir, originally created Deep England for live performance with Movement Director Imogen Knight, Sound Associate Peter Rice and Designer Chloe Lamford. The performance, described by The Times in their 4* review as a “spellbinding febrile techno-pagan pageant”, premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in November 2019.
Gazelle Twin, aka composer, musician and producer Elizabeth Bernholz, was conceived in 2009, with the release of debut album, The Entire City. Unflesh followed, in 2014, unveiling an onstage costume based on Bernholz’s teenage PE kit. In 2016, Gazelle Twin created Kingdom Come, an audio-visual performance depicting a fascist hell-scape based on JG Ballard’s final novel, released in 2017, and in 2018 Bernholz’s third studio album Pastoral was released to international acclaim, and went on to be an album of the year at a number of outlets including The Quietus, Uncut, Loud & Quiet, The Wire, Electronic Sound, 6Music, Rough Trade and HMV. Pastoral’s unforgettable “red imp” character is reflected in the costumes for Deep England.
NYX: electronic drone choir was created in 2017 by former Creative Director of London Contemporary Voices Sian O’Gorman and former Producers of Convergence Festival Philippa Neels and Josh Thomas. NYX is a collaborative drone choir and otherworldly electric chorus, re-embodying live electronics and extended vocal techniques. Collaborations to date include Hatis Noit, Iona Fortune, Alicia Jane Turner, Christina Vantzou and Belinda Zhawi, and recent interdisciplinary sonic installation / live performances include collaborations with Dan Tobin Smith for London Design Festival, performing with Sigur Rós at BST in Hyde Park, at Rewire Festival supporting Nicolas Jaar, and providing a live score at QEII Design Award for London Fashion Week 2020.
RECENT PRAISE:
DEEP ENGLAND LIVE
“This febrile techno-pagan pageant proved to be a spellbinding spectacle at its Southbank debut” – The Times
It is a forceful reminder of the weight of choral music’s long history, of all the humans who have ever sung.” – New Statesman
“A deeply engrossing, ghastly, yet intensely beautiful carousel of sound” – Get in Her Ears
NYX: ELECTRONIC DRONE CHOIR
Harnessing the void between nature and technology, the choir show us the creative possibilities of our 21st century relationship with electronics.” – Dazed
“I’ll always find space for this kind of beautiful sound” – Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6Music
NYX are incredibly skilled technicians, merging visceral, scratching vocals with live electronic manipulation as they stand at their mixing desks” – The Quietus
Thursday 25 March @ Audio Foundation, from 8pm
Free entry, donations welcome