Category: GIHE Writers

Elizabeth Bernholz’s life is inherently strange. Whether she is talking backstage with Gary Numan about ghosts, creating dark and exhilarating electronic music under her moniker Gazelle Twin, or immersing herself into normal family life; she embraces the oddity of it all.

Last time I spoke with the producer, composer and visual artist in April 2022, she was in her home studio, reflecting on the tenth anniversary of her debut album, The Entire City. She expressed that she was still using her music as “a way to get through life” and hinted that there was more to explore through this medium. What she was subtly alluding to was her fourth full-length record; the shadowy, spine-tingling Black Dog, released in October last year via Invada Records.

Usually veiled by costumes or characters for all of her work as Gazelle Twin, one of the most startling elements of Black Dog was that Bernholz had removed her mask. Facing her demons with no shield, this bold act paved the way for an exquisitely raw, truly haunting piece of art, on which Bernholz reflects on her experiences with the paranormal, postpartum depression and the powerful fears and inner forces that direct us through life.

When Bernholz performs the album live, it’s another beast entirely. Falling somewhere between a dark lullaby and intense sleep paralysis; Black Dog shape-shifts between plaintive and poignant, ghastly and graceful, as Bernholz switches between spotlights and shadows, standing and seated. She will be bringing this hair-raising performance to Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival on Friday 30th August. Eclectic acts such as Grove, Emma Ruth Rundle, Mary Lattimore and One Leg One Eye will also be playing the festival across the weekend (tickets are available here)

“I love Supersonic, it’s my favourite festival in the UK,” she smiles. The last time Bernholz featured on the line-up was in 2018, performing tracks from her third record, Pastoral. “It’s always a really great crowd and I really love Birmingham as well. This will probably be one of the last Black Dog shows that I do in its current form, too. I’m looking forward to it.”

To date, Bernholz has only performed Black Dog at a small number of venues across the UK since its release in 2023. There are several reasons for the limited shows, including production and logistical touring costs. But there’s another factor too. Bernholz explains that with this particular record, due to its deeply revealing and personal nature, there is a strong emotional toll that comes with each performance.

“Some of the very raw emotions that were pouring out into that record are still being lived now,” she reflects. Bernholz is referring to going through pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood for the second time during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how this led to her excavating her past. “I’m obsessed with the past, which is probably no surprise by now,” she laughs. “I’m one of those people that’s constantly trying to process those periods of my life. Those formative years where you’re working things out and who you are – I’m still doing it. So a lot of those questions that came up are still not answered and still part of my creative occupation really.”

This instinct to examine and understand these parts of herself is part of the process of performing Black Dog live. She comments that layering things with “weirdness” and a “dark charge” allows her to inhabit “another world” when she is on stage, which makes things more manageable, but she was initially very nervous about sharing it with live audiences.

“I do still find the shows hard,” she reveals. “I sit down for a lot of it and I’m making eye contact with the audience, so I make myself as vulnerable as I can be. After a show, often, there’s a lot of adrenaline and tears and I haven’t always had that. I [usually have] adrenaline, anxiety and then a lot of exhilaration. It’s been a journey. I am enjoying the shows, but they are a bit of an ordeal as well. I’m okay with that. It feels like I’m doing something important for me, at the very least, and hopefully that does come across to audiences as well.”

As with all things, time has helped to ease some of this anxiety, which Bernholz likens to the process of being tattooed. “There is a certain degree of numbing that happens. The pain is really intense at first, but then it becomes okay and it’s quite nice. I’m at that stage now, mid-tattoo, going with it and trying to make the most of it. I’ve been doing a lot of shows in places I’ve never really done before, so that’s been really nice.”

In addition to her “momentous” sold out headline show at London’s historic Bush Hall – more on that to come – Bernholz has cherished the opportunity to connect with new audiences in new locations on this tour. “I’m not a massively touring artist, but when I get the chance to do a gig in a place where I’ve never been before, I’m always really happy to do it,” she comments. As part of the first run of Black Dog shows, Bernholz performed at The Glass House in Newcastle, which marked her debut gig in the North East.

“It’s a big classical venue and the people that came along to that were a total mixture,” she recalls. “A lot of people took a punt on it, it was something quite new to the venue, maybe a bit weirder than their usual programming. I had a chat with a couple of music students afterwards and they were just surprised and happy that they’d got to see something like that in their city. It made me feel good.”

Bernholz is also looking forward to returning to play in Glasgow in September. “This show, compared to my previous set ups, is more expensive,” she willingly admits. “There’s more people involved, there’s a baseline of tech requirements that we have, and proper staging and production. So the chance to do stuff away from London, with this level of production is great.”

A common thread that connects the places and people that Bernholz performs to is gratitude. She instinctively taps into the atmosphere of each location, something which is especially true of her London show at Bush Hall last year. “I love London gigs. I have an amazing following there and I love visiting London as much as I can,” she enthuses. “I think it is a bit of a beacon, so if something works in London, you can trial it to a bigger audience first, and take it further out.”

She continues to reflect on the “epic” nature of her London Black Dog live debut. “I was so anxious. The sound check didn’t go particularly well, we had a haunted sound desk,” she smiles. “I was in a weird zone before the show. I felt supercharged with anxiety. I think, being an anxious person generally, I’m always on some level of tension, but it was ramped up. But it did me a favour, because the show was actually a huge release.”

Bernholz’s anxiety about performing is not rooted in insecurity, it comes from a place of wanting to bring the intrinsic worth of her visions as Gazelle Twin to life. “I’m more sure of myself on that stage than at any other time in my life,” she shares. “I love that experience, it’s like having a lucid dream. As somebody who is socially not amazingly confident – suddenly being a person that can eyeball people and be incredibly vulnerable at the same time – it’s like getting to live a different life for a bit. I loved the Bush Hall show. The energy in the room was extraordinary. I could feel electricity in the air.”

As a spectator at Bush Hall, I can confirm that it was an exceptional performance. Bernholz’s necromantic spirit and otherworldly vocal range ricocheted off the archaic walls of the old music hall. The crowd of fans and friends were silent and spellbound, including electronic music pioneer Gary Numan. “Gary and his family came backstage afterwards and then we just spent about an hour talking about ghosts,” Bernholz shares. “The whole thing was like an insane dream. You can’t make it up, really.”

A new dream that Bernholz will be making a reality in the near future is a specially commissioned show at another prestigious London venue. In November, she will be performing alongside the London Contemporary Orchestra at The British Library, on a Black Dog inspired piece that will open the venue’s new season, Tales of the Weird: An Autumnal Festival – a celebration of the strange, the uncanny and horror. Ticket holders will also have access to the new exhibition, Medieval Women: in their own words.

“It’s a perfect positioning to present Black Dog in almost an acoustic form,” Bernholz shares. “I’ve been saying that it will be like the ‘Victorian version’,” she laughs, before adding “that sounds awful actually.” Bernholz insists she won’t be “cosplaying as a Victorian”, but she will be transforming the intensely layered and electronic music of Black Dog, offering her listeners a new perspective on the record. “Weirdly, when I was writing Black Dog, I had orchestral scale in my mind,” she shares, “I kept that, with the hope that one day we could do this version and hopefully record it as well.”

Bernholz has collaborated with conductor Robert Ames before, but she is especially excited to work with the London Contemporary Orchestra for the first time. “It’s a brilliant opportunity to be able to do that within the majesty of The British Library as well, with all of that incredible literature and history around,” she comments. “I’m so excited. Hopefully we’ll be able to transport it as well, and do it a few more times. Hopefully in the UK and maybe abroad as well.”

2024 continues to be a busy year for Bernholz. As well as balancing her Gazelle Twin performances alongside her normal everyday life as a parent, she is also preparing to acknowledge the 10th anniversary of her second album, Unflesh. Released back in September 2014 via her own imprint Anti-Ghost Moon Ray, this Gazelle Twin record marks a significant point in my own life as a music fan and journalist. It changed my idea of what electronic music could be, so I suspect it holds a deeper reverence for the creator.

When I ask how she feels about the upcoming anniversary, Bernholz jokes that it makes her “feel old”, before revealing that she considers Unflesh to be her “true love” album. “I think I hit on something that I have never been able to get rid of – I hit what Gazelle Twin truly was meant to be for me,” she explains. “I look back on Unflesh and I just think ‘God, I’m so glad I did it, and I did it without giving a shit about how it was going to do, or what it was. It was just urgent and I just went for it without any expectations.”

Much like the inception of Black Dog, on Unflesh, Bernholz was exorcizing a lot of pent up emotions. “It was a huge thing for me, coming out of a past mental state which I hadn’t acknowledged until I’d made the album,” she recalls. “It was like this floodgate situation that allowed me to be creative with expressing those types of things. I think even beyond that, Unflesh has just been a bit of a template for how I approach making things. I don’t know how I’ll feel about Black Dog in 10 years time. I made it how I wanted to make it, but it’s funny, these things have a different meaning to you when you’re the person making it.”

This key “difference” is that Bernholz says she can listen back to Unflesh, and it doesn’t provoke a “horrible full body cringe” and force her to contemplate what could have been added or edited, which is something she has experienced when reflecting on other works. “I can still listen to that album – and this isn’t to pat myself on the back – but I am proud of that work. “I still think there’s mileage in it and more to take from it,” she explains. “I think there’s mileage in that visual world. If there was another chapter, what would that be? [What if] it was in a different form, like a book?” she extrapolates.

Fans will have to wait until September to find out exactly what Bernholz has planned…

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Photo Credit: Teri Varhol

Kate Crudgington
@kate_crudge