PRESS / REVIEWS

"You could argue Karen Dreijer Andersson was really onto something with her Fever Ray debut last year. With its mix of intimate arrangements, odd distancing gestures and electronic beats twisted to suit the needs of narrative form, the Knife musician’s self-titled opus crept under the skin as a kind of postmodern confessional.

Brighton’s Elizabeth Walling attempts a similar trick with her haunting Gazelle Twin project, and her ideas appear to be taking wing. With a look inspired by the Surrealist painter Max Ernst’s feathered alter-ego Loplop, and a debut album available to hear in demo form over at Myspace, Walling is busy assembling the elements of an immersive experience to get lost in.

That record, The Entire City, is a dream-like tableau evoking Bjork, The Dirty Projectors and Vienna’s Soap & Skin as well as Andersson’s sly gift for otherness. At times it plays like a surrealist nightmare, with teeth in all the wrong places. At times it’s softer than that. It also works as a slice of urban gothic in the manner of The Bug’s London Zoo and Liars’ Sisterworld (the album is named after one of Ernst’s paintings at Tate Modern).

There are creepy, distorted vocals, menacing brass flourishes and abundant, synthetic strings and choral arrangements – apt really, since what are cities if not unnatural symphonies of sound? Great cities are also like dreams in that they’re canvases onto which we project our fears and desires. And Walling’s canvas groans with both."
From an interview with The Quietus, Alex Denney, July 2010 |  Read in full

"The latest talent to spring from Brighton's musical hotbed is solo artist Gazelle Twin, aka Elizabeth Walling. An accomplished classically trained composer armed with a laptop and plenty of artful vision, Walling’s latest guise occupies the darker edge of electronic pop, as beautifully evidenced by her original works, including the mesmerising, high drama symphonies of The Entire City (the title track of her upcoming album), Scavenger and Changelings. Her music comes complemented with vivid otherworldly visuals, and she makes her debut public performance in a suitably subterranean setting that is part gig, part ‘immersive audio-visual’ art installation, tomorrow. Gazelle Twin does bring to mind the dreamy vocal allure of Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins), the strange beauty of Fever Ray and the edgy seduction of Siouxsie Sioux. But the Exciting thing is that there is no one exactly like her."
Arwa Haider, The METRO (One To Watch), April 2010

"A true exponent of the eclecticism we expect from our Brighton musicians, Elizabeth Walling is sure to break the city borders before too long. Formerly singer and flautist with local notorieties A Scandal In Bohemia, she has recently adopted this solo guise for a uniquely classical take on pop electronica."
White Night Festival, Brighton October 2009

"Singer-songwriter ELIZABETH'S Cocteau Twins ethereality meets Bjork bombast immediately bewitched us..."
Latest 7, Loop Festival Review July 2009

"... the lights are fluttering between dim blues, violets and reds, while the pulsating industrial beats of opening track 'The Terrible Hour' are so bassy I can feel the music thundering in my chest already. Elizabeth's voice has an astonishing range - she can meander between low, sultry and ominous tones to soft, angelic croons and fiery shrieks and wails effortlessly.

Her vocals bring to mind the fragile, vulnerability of Beth Gibbons of Portishead; the eerie, sensual and early days of Goldfrapp before they went all tame, radio-friendly disco revival, and the complexity and creativity of Meredith Monk. All the while, band mates sample layers and layers of luscious harmonies, whirrs, clicks and crashing drums with nods to Bjork, Hanne Hukkelberg, Aphex Twin and Thom Yorke.

The set flexes in and out of a cacophony of sounds and quieter, wistful moments. The former is what really sucks me in – the boldness of her voice layering over a wall of instrumentation really intensifies the experience and proves Elizabeth and her band are no one trick ponies, they are merely at the threshold between the avant-garde and the accessible – and I look forward to following where it leads them."
The 405, Loop Festival Review, 21 July 2009 | Read Full Review

"Tonight’s host, Elizabeth Walling, is equally excellent. Her voice is winter picture postcard purity personified – it seems to frost over, bewitch and envelop her songs which range from, rather aptly, Vespertine style choral glitch to Kate Bush goes Balkan folk within the tidy confines of a short set. It’s effortlessly good and the perfectly prefigures the glacial grace Valgeir serves up. "
FACT MAGAZINE, January 2009 | Read Full Review

"Elizabeth Walling’s brand new set fused sparse, cold electronic beats with live cello, harmonised flutes and her breathtaking voice to create an impressively full yet restrained sound with nods to Bjork and Beth Gibbons."
THE ARGUS, January 2009 | Read Full Review

"The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly Elizabeth Walling, who improvised vocals, flute, and autoharp while her bandmate Ed Briggs remixed her performance with the aid of a laptop and tape loops. The result sounded like a collaboration between Enya and Martin Swope. It is only because Walling has such a strong voice that the manipulation process worked, and only because she adds flute and autoharp that what could easily become a one trick pony stays interesting..."
THE LONDONIST, Amanda Farah November 7th 2008 | Read Full Review

"An exceptional musician, composer and experimentalist..."
THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL GUIDE, May 2008