Live Review

Gazelle Twin – Electrowerkz, London

• 2nd Sep 2011

Two women with blue LED fingertips, blue robes and their faces obscured by fencing masks beckon us away from the bar and into the performance space.

Set across three rooms in a former metal works building, with one room for live performances and the DJs that followed, another room housing a bar within a carcass of an old tube train carriage, a number of daubed graffiti works and the smell of fresh paint, and the third featuring a projection that accompanies the Entire City, the album being launched here tonight with a live rendition by it’s creator Gazelle Twin.

As we’re gathered into the cosy room and greeted with the sight of a number of hooded and robed players onstage, the strange hushed excitement surges between the audience.  The first track arrives amid a flurry of synths to create a fantastic moody soundscape, and a pair of drummers with only their eyes visible, bang out the industrial pounding beat in unison.

But it is when Gazelle Twin sings that we experience a real shivers down the spine moment, a shimmering and distorted voice that finds itself somewhere between Enya and Fever Ray, and certainly channeling the darkness evident through the music of Fever Ray and her previous work in The Knife.

Yet, for all it’s ethereal beauty and dark ominous tones, the gaps that are filled with silence between every single track played, suddenly drop you from whatever fantasy world we had been taken to and leaves the performance disjointed, whilst the album itself flows, this performance stutters.

And it is through this lack of coherence that flaws begin to be revealed, the fascinating costumes and lack of interaction that set the tone early on, soon reek of amateur dramatics and, once removed from an immersive experience, and simply viewing this as a gig, you suddenly question how much of the effect drenched vocals are performed live, and whether the drums are more for show and to complement a backing track, and just how much are the other two maidens that barely move contributing, and how much is simply played from the laptop that conspicuously sits side of stage.

I came into this gig as a fan of the album and it’s finely textured cinematic feel, hoping for an equally fascinating performance that would give it an extra dimension when witnessed live.

Perhaps I was just hoping for too much, or perhaps Gazelle Twin need to work a little harder when transitioning The Entire City onto stage.