Strange and bizarre, the fate of Keeley Forsyth, a British actress who found an unexpected artistic outlet in music and singing. A courageous choice, resulting from the sudden psychological block that had deprived her of the use of words; with “Debris” and “Limbs” the artist dialogued with pain and darkness through blues, folk, noir and jazz, with an intensity that evoked similarities to the music of Scott Walker post-“Tilt.”
The third album “The Hollow” is a harbinger of slight innovations; not only does the project mark a move to Fat Cat, specifically for Brighton-based sub-label 130701, but it is also his most dynamic and seductive work yet.
Ross Downes and Matthew Bourne are still at the English artist’s side and the affinities with Anohni, Diamanda Galas and those already mentioned with Scott Walker have an increasingly physical as well as spiritual connotation, but the main novelty of “The Hollow” is contained in more solemn dramaturgy that evokes Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil. In this apparently composed scenario, Forsyth moves with expressive authority, reconciling romantic languor and sepulchral tones with austere (“Answer”) and wild beauty (the title track).
Like Sibyl showing the way to Aeneas, Keeley leads the listener through soundscapes noir and painful family memories (the grandmother protagonist of two tracks, the more spiritual “Come And See” and the folk ballad “Eve”), for a moment leaves out singing for a recitation of imposing physical strength that is adorned with a splendid electronic frame (“A Shift”), then dialogues with an icy and hypnotic sound riff on sax by the always caustic Colin Stetson, in the excellent “Turning”.
Keeley Forsyth’s music is a journey between emotional ravines and shadows, between leaden sounds (“Answer”) and sacred sounds (“Horse”) that dissolve in rarefied piano chords (“Cascade”) in an attempt to tell the anxieties of human soul, not without having sown a shred of surly hope (“Do I Breathe”), for another devastating and raw dialogue with suffering and marginalization (“In The Corner”).
Like a modern mantra, “The Hollow” digs under the skin and moves the insides with lacerating melancholy, becomes infected with cultured literary and musical quotes, marries infantile impulses (“Slush”) and for a moment falters close to romanticism noir (“Drag Me Down”), developing the English artist’s richest and most multifaceted mosaic to date.
06/13/2024
