Hand To Mouth: 12" Vinyl EP

Pre-Order Item. Release Date Subject to Change.
Label: FatCat Records
Release Date: 4th April

Like all of Keeley Forsyth and Matthew Bourne's music, this is a real sit and let the intimacy of Keeley's verbrato and the economical space of Matthew's production absorb you. 

Hand To Mouth is concerned with what is essential. The songs are an elemental distillation rich with purposeful austerity. Only what is necessary is carefully crafted as though whittled into perfect forms of economic purity. With bare production and sensitive mixing from Chris Sharkey, we are in the presence of truthful music. Pieces that lay themselves bare in their humanness. It is a collaboration between two highly intuitive and synchronised musicians, able to reach and offer us, the listeners, emotions that feel sincere and vital.

It’s a told story, but one worth retelling here: Keeley had long made music through her adult life without gaining the necessary means, perhaps necessary confidence, to attempt recording and releasing it. The time eventually came during a personal period of crisis during which Keeley happened upon the music of Matthew Bourne during an episode of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction. On hearing this, Keeley instinctively envisaged her voice marrying with the piano and promptly contacted Matthew. She was looking for new paths to emerge, and lead somewhere better - and Matthew was one of these paths. Matthew promptly met, after listening to what Keeley had been developing, which, with his assistance, eventually became Keeley’s debut LP Debris. Released at the beginning of 2020, the record was met with universal praise - and so commenced this ongoing chapter in Keeley’s life, away from acting and focusing more on music and live performance.

Cut to four years or so later, and the two are now close friends, regular collaborators, and make frequent live appearances on the stages of Europe together. After the 2024 release of The Hollow, on which Matthew co-composed the end song Creature, the two decided to make something focusing mostly on voice and piano. A collection of songs that are aesthetically paired down somewhat, that may translate authentically to the stage, whilst exploring the nature of a duo primarily between voice and piano.

Consider This is a sparsely eloquent beginning. A song that feels as though it’s arrived from Germany between the wars. A minimalist ‘Dietrichian’ ballad. It has the sensation and sound of Europe’s historic heaviness lingering in its bones. As the enigmatic vocal hums its closing phrases we are left wondering who this character is. As with many of the songs on this collection, Keeley’s characters are heard to be asking questions without giving too much away.

It Seems commences with a kinetic, minimalist staccato on the grand piano, reminiscent of Charlemagne Palestine’s strumming technique. Keeley flows above the constant movement finding melody in her own time atop the pianos animated rhythm - that is eventually met by an absorbing cello, enveloping the track in waves of droned notes, swallowing the gradually abating piano.

Talk To Me starts with a calm, lamenting meditation on a synthesiser. An uncanny sound, at once timeless and ancient, referring as it does to sacred organ music. It is as though Boards Of Canada have collaborated with Arvo Pärt. We are between worlds. The unrivalled tone of the Memorymoog forms an at once plaintive and warm foundation for Keeley’s voice that is found here in narrative mode, seemingly giving advice and addressing an unknown protagonist: ‘You better be quick now, Hurry, carefully mark each hour. You better be quick now, As your breath descends’.

Rain finds Matthew building the instrumentation around Keeley’s vocal. “I ended up working first from Keeley’s vocal lines ‘hanging’ my piano part from each of Keeley’s notes and phrases”. The ebb and flow of the structure seem to offer passages of space for one another. Turns are being taken for the common cause as Rain gathers to a dramatic crescendo of cello and piano with Keeley mournfully reiterating ‘this Is over/this is over/ this is over’.

Anxiety begins in gentle intensity. A ruminating procession of focused notes. Matthew’s intention to “create a sense of the mesmeric, uneven quality to the repetition” provides a trundling mantra for Keeley who initially decides to slur her introduction before the clarity of the depressive predicament becomes all too clear.

Sing is a reimagining of Creature - the concluding track from The Hollow. A song that was written about the passing of Keeley’s Grandmother Mary who raised Keeley, igniting her interest in music and theatre. With an alternate vocal from Keeley, we find her at the side of Mary’s deathbed, dealing as we all must, with someone gradually becoming death, wasting away towards the end beneath hospital sheets. Matthew concludes this version on cello with what he describes as “a kind of ‘coda’ section - giving a semblance of a larger arrangement” and perhaps a final glimmer of hope.

Hand to Mouth follows the release of Keeley’s third album The Hollow in May 2024 which was met with critical acclaim and remains in demand for live presentation.

“What a bloody phenomenal album, in a space all of its own” – The Quietus

“Forsyth paints her world's rugged beauty in tones that could stop listeners dead” – 4/5 Mojo

“Forsyth has shown herself to be one of the UK's most consistently interesting and creatively absorbing performers” – The Line Of Best Fit