Keeley Forsyth has shared the video for her vibrant new single ‘Turning (feat. Colin Stetson)’. Following last month’s ‘Horse’, ‘Turning‘ is the second single to be taken from Keeley’s new album The Hollow, her third album and debut for FatCat’s 130701 imprint, which will be released on 10 May.
‘Turning’ was born after Keeley attended Colin Stetson‘s solo live show, admiring his singular approach, at once technically brilliant and emotionally captivating and decided to invite him to collaborate. The resulting track is a feverish cyclical dervish with Stetson utilising a range of saxophones to create a Philip Glass-like arpeggiated stampede for Keeley to ride alongside.
Speaking of ‘Turning’, Keeley says:
“Colin is a force, elemental and truly moving to witness. Experiencing him perform live was in many ways the catalyst for this collaboration. I wanted to try and match his instrumentation with a percussive, staccato vocal line, aiming to complement his playing without overshadowing or personally being so central to the piece. It’s quite rare to hear Colin’s playing accompanied by a vocalist and it’s an experiment I’d like to explore with him further in the future.”
The wilds of Keeley Forsyth’s adopted home in the North of England seem to inhabit this, her third record. An often foreboding landscape surrounds the Yorkshire town in which Forsyth resides. The moors, on clear days, visible from her home studio window, impact upon a music that often feels made of these places. Windswept, rain soaked and blinking through the low-lit landscape. The title for the new collection derives from happening upon a long-abandoned mining shaft whilst out walking. At once alluring and hazardous, forced into a hillside. The record is also in part dedicated to Forsyth’s grandmother Mary, the woman who raised her from birth and who she lost at the beginning of 2023.
‘The Hollow’ experiments with an expanding field of collaborators and approaches. Forsyth’s good friend Matthew Bourne returns and the aforementioned Colin Stetson joins. Working again with producer Ross Downes, (Photograph and Limbs) Forsyth desired to place the music to the side of any given genre, including aspects of sacred music, minimalist post-classical, dark ambient, film and theatre soundtracks. Forsyth layered her vocals into chamber choirs, applied pitch shifts and other digital processing, and speaks directly with clear articulate intention one moment to mumbled numb utterances in the next.
Although having made music privately for most of her life it was only eventually in 2020 that she felt ready to find an audience with the release of her debut collection Debris. Since then, Forsyth has toured extensively internationally with forthcoming shows scheduled at London’s ICA, Rewire festival in DenHaag and Bristol New Music. She has been awarded the PRS new music commission for her performance piece Bog Body and has scored Maxine Peake’s directorial debut short film, Incompatible. She has become a sought-after collaborator, currently working towards projects with the Iceland-based electronic music producer Ben Frost, and the Italian composer Teho Teardo and is currently finishing a suite of songs for voice and piano with Matthew Bourne. Of late she has taken on guest vocal duties for Louis Carnell among others, as well as remixes for Gazelle Twin and French electronic musician Quin Quis. Forsyth has also returned to acting in the past year with parts in Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things.
Photo credit: William Lacalmontie
Pre-order The Hollow, including a 350 limited Dinked edition, here:
https://ffm.bio/keeleyforsyth
The Hollow tracklist:
- Answer
- The Hollow
- Come And See
- Eve
- Turning (feat. Colin Stetson)
- A Shift
- Slush
- Drag Me Down
- Do I Breathe
- In The Corner
- Horse
- Creature (feat. Matthew Bourne)
Live dates:
6 Apr – The Hague, NL @ Rewire Festival
27 Apr – Bristol @ Lantern Hall, Bristol New Music
23 May – London @ Institute of Contemporary Arts
Tickets are available here:
http://www.keeleyforsyth.com/
