KEELEY FORSYTH – Limbs – LP – BAY124V

Limbs is not perfect. It’s slippery, to the point that I’m certainly missing stuff, because it’s not as easy to decode lyrics and intent, as for more conventional performers. I imagine dry humour but can’t quite prove it. I start to worry that this might be too po-faced in its intellectualism, in Adam Curtis style. The only other artists named in the press release, in a quote from Forsyth herself, are the French avant-garde theatre icon Antonin Artaud and the German dancer Pina Bausch (and choreographed movement is clearly a very important element of Forsyth’s live performance). So, an unabashed cultural mind at work that is thrilling, yet plays on one’s insecurities as a listener. Also, Limbs is short. Eight tracks, none reaches four minutes, meaning that one is left wishing for more. Of course, none of that is remotely a problem, unless one decides it is. In its fullness and emptiness, all at once, Limbs is an album that dares the listener not to fall for it. Keeley Forsyth is a world builder and Limbs is an outstanding record.

CJ Thorpe-Tracey / The Quietus