Is there a Gazelle Twin sound? Early fans believed so, until the dramatic left turn of 2018’s Pastoral and its companion album Deep England. To her benefit, Elizabeth Bernholz is incredibly hard to pigeonhole, confounding expectations at every turn. This being said, the original score to the eight-part Sky series Then You Run is the closest the composer has come to UNFLESH in nearly a decade. Shifting in recent years to scoring work, the artist has already provided music for Nocturne and The Power, both appearing on Invada Records along with the current set.
The series revolves around four female friends whose summer vacation involves being on the run with three kilos of heroin. The music highlights both danger and the respites in-between. There’s no reveal of how the story will end, but the listener roots for the protagonists, even without seeing them. The relative peace of closer “Summer’s Not Over” indicates a possible escape, until it turns louder and weirder in the closing minute, with onomatopoeic vocals and aggressive drums. This is one of five single-length tracks on the album, which leads off with an extended version of “History,” a chanted song that invites listener participation. The others are “Herd,” a hard, percussive piece whose drums evaporate in the second minute, only to return with a vengeance; “Two Minds,” a reflective foray into dark ambience; and “The Hotel,” an exercise in choral drone.
The other pieces are like Gazelle Twin mini-parfaits; so sweet, but one yearns for more, an entire album of extended versions. The title track, by name and feel more than sound, is akin to Giorgio Moroder’s “The Chase,” from Midnight Express. “Teamwork” is a club monster waiting to attack, with increasing density and drama, folding its wings at a premature 1:46. “For Mirko” goes deep, dark and dangerous, sounding like a clashing of swords. “Death Drive” is the score’s swiftest and most unrelenting piece, as befits the title. While the album’s liability is the brevity of the shortest pieces, its strength is that Gazelle Twin, although working on commission, has not compromised her sound. By the end, one is shaken and unsettled, but not pushed away; instead, one wants to delve even deeper into story and sound. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 