Acclaimed singer Keeley Forsyth presents a stripped back performance, accompanied by Matthew Bourne on piano presenting music from their recent collection Hand To Mouth (FatCat Records/130701).

This paired back collaboration is focussed only on what is essential, a deliberate exploitation of space and restraint. Forsyth and Bourne are two highly intuitive and synchronised musicians and longtime friends, able to reach and offer us emotions that are sincere and vital – truthful music. Alongside tracks from the Hand To Mouth collection, the pair rework some previously released Forsyth music, alongside new unheard works.

The iconoclastic nature of Keeley’s sound finds disparate influences from various genres without seeming to belong to one itself. In Spring 2024, she released her third studio album The Hollow on FatCat Records 130701 imprint. Having trained as a dancer, Keeley’s live shows are animated with a powerful physicality and a focus on the moment that feels close to performance art. Taking cues from the rugged expanses of her native North Yorkshire landscape, the edge-of-reason existential intensity of Samuel Beckett and Bela Tarr, Antonin Artaud’s Theatre Of Cruelty, the neo-expressionist choreography of Pina Bausch. She has left an indelible mark on stages around the world, including Unsound, Dark Mofo, Le Guess Who?, CTM, Rewire and Donau.

Keeley forges connections that are simultaneously fierce and tender, invoking primal, animalistic energy with moments of ethereal softness. She defies easy categorisation, embodying spoken word and deftly manipulating her sonic landscape, refusing to be confined by conventional artistic boundaries or expectations.

In recent years Keeley has worked with esteemed collaborators including Ben Frost, Colin Stetson, Teho Teardo, Gazelle Twin, Evelyn Glennie, Louis Carnell, Yann Tiersen among others.

Keeley is a singer, composer and actress from Oldham, UK. A frequent presence on primetime TV since the mid-‘90s, over the past few years she has struck out to forge an uncompromising presence in contemporary music. Keeley continues to occasionally act for film and TV, most recently appearing in Jessica Hausner’s dark satire Club Zero as well as in Yorgos Lanthimos’s celebrated and multi-award-winning Poor Things.