Every so often, by chance, one comes across a performer so outstandingly original in their approach that they seem far ahead of their time and setting new standards in new and fresh arenas. Either that, or they exhibit a power of musical narrative that has found its time, place and expression not in the future but in the current Time and Place and within the discourses of their day. Such an artist is Keeley Forsyth.
I met up with Keeley Forsyth, in November and December 2021, when we were both working for left-field film director, Yorgos Lanthimos and his film of Alisdair Gray’s “Poor Things”. Both character parts in a scene with Emma Stone and Christopher Abbott. The film was being shot in Hungary in a beautiful Budapest location. With plenty of time for Green Room chat and exchanges, it was evident that Lanthimos found an affinity with Forsyth’s style and narrative. Future projects with Lanthimos may well follow.
The filming in Hungary being prior to the release of Forsyth’s second album “Limbs” which comes our way on February 25th 2022. Forsyth says of this album:
“The world I wanted to create needed to be anchored firmly in reality,” Keeley Forsyth said in a press release. “At the same time the music needed to open free, poetic spheres for the listener, allowing room for their own associations. Limbs that marked out traces of time, in motion rather than static, allowing me to inhabit and flesh out the daily drama of existence precisely. Staying close to reality was something I learned from Antonin Artaud and Pina Bausch.”
The bleak social landscape that has been faced in the last two years, through the Pandemic, is a fitting backdrop to to emotional tones of Forsyth’s expressive and melancholic tones. Yet there is no depression here. When Leonard Cohen released Bird On a Wire on April 7 1969 he was, wrongly, described as being depressing. He was not. Although it took at little longer for the public to appreciate his profundity.
Keeley Forsyth is very much of her day and time and her expressive music is appropriate to the times.
A Guardian article, from Jude Rogers, form January 2020 refers to Forsyth as “..the new Scott Walker”. The comparison is appropriate.
Jude Rogers says: “…a shivery descendent of Scott Walker’s Tilt, a more unsettling older sister of Aldous Harding’s Designer. Forsyth’s voice marries Peggy Lee’s bluesy vibrato with Nic’s thunderous terror, and delivers lyrics that invert nature, as a way of exploing despair. Large oaks descend and grow roots. Salt hills move. Madness unfurls.” This is not music for the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show.
The depth, quality and originality of the music is underwritten by the films that accompany her music. No less original in their content and structure here is an artist with a voice to speak volumes to this day. We will be following Keeley Forsyth’s continuing rise with great interest on this Blog and will continue to report on Forsyth’s activity.
Keeley Forsyth’s second album “Limbs” is released on the Leaf label on February 25 2022>
