Holy Other

In 2021 Holy Other returned with Lieve, his first new work to be released in nine years, and the start of a new chapter. Emerging from an extended stay at Bidston Observatory on the Wirral, Lieve was recorded throughout 2020 in the North West of England. Using the acoustics of the observatory — the cavernous basement and the geometrically-perfect wooden domes — Holy Other recorded and resampled material that would become the bedrock of Lieve. A marker in the sand as his first output since 2012’s critically-acclaimed Held, these recordings — including the voice of NYX’s Sian O’Gorman, violin from Simmy Singh and saxophone from Daniel Thorne — were cut, manipulated and pieced together to form Lieve.

Much like his past work, Holy Other leaves the listener to draw their own semantic conclusions from the record. The lyrics are ambiguous — ghostly voices, whispers and stutters interwoven with his signature sound palette. Still, the expressive mood from prior releases remains intact, even if these intimate textures and deft rhythms pick up more mature questions about false starts and failed escapes. Lieve breaks almost a decade of silence, finding the language to articulate painful feelings, exhaling, and moving forward.

Support will come from Sevendeaths, the pseudonym of Edinburgh-based electronic musician Steven Shade who has released several critically acclaimed records and and who was previously a member of Scottish guitar bands American Men, Eunoia and G-Plan. His debut album ‘Concreté Misery’, created with a midi guitar and digital FX chains, melded doom, shoegaze, and minimalism into arpeggio laced experimental drone and was included in A Closer Listen’s retrospective ‘Best drone albums of the decade’ list.