Album Review

Gazelle Twin – The Entire City

• 27th Jun 2011

Sounding like the opening scenes of a sci-fi epic, when an album starts like this then you know that you have just tuned into something rather special.

Dark industrial tones and horn stabs, amongst icy cold synths, Gazelle Twin’s Entire City announces itself with a cinematic feel that sounds as if it has been genetically engineered to soundtrack a cross between Blade Runner and Terminator, creating a sombre and ominous atmospheric that continues throughout the albums twelve tracks.

Aspects and influences from a number of logical sources find their way into the shimmering and ethereal music, Vangelis’ aforementioned Blade Runner soundtrack, Mezzanine-era Massive Attack and Karin Dreijer Andersson’s output with The Knife and as Fever Ray all factor highly and are echoed again and again, and indeed, the presence of such highly regarded inspirations set the bar high for Elizabeth Walling aka Gazelle Twin, but not unattainably so.

To consider The Entire City as an album seems to be undermining it, instead it exists more as a pitch perfect score to a non-existent film, left to our imagination, taken from the bold and illustrious musical cues.  It holds nothing that stands out as obvious single releases, and is hardly full of singalong moments, but if that is what you were expecting than Gazelle City will without a doubt be too leftfield for such simple tastes and narrow minds.

An upcoming album launch in London in September promises otherworldly costumes, visuals and lighting to complement a rare live performance, and Gazelle Twin has clearly marked herself out as an avant-garde and mesmerising tour-de-force that has certainly caught my attention with this release.