Jehnny Beth explores gender on first solo LP ‘To Love Is To Live’

Songwriter, singer, and author Jehnny Beth releases her debut solo album, a sonic tour de force entitled To Love Is To Live.

The record was recorded in Los Angeles, London, and Paris, and features a number of collaborators, including producers Flood, Atticus Ross, and longtime co-creator Johnny Hostile. It also features guest turns from The xx’s Romy Madley Croft, actor Cillian Murphy, and IDLES’ Joe Talbot.

The album’s release comes with a short film by acclaimed creative studio Hingston Studio, who also collaborated with Jehnny Beth on the record’s powerful cover art, for the song We Will Sin Together.

We Will Sin Together is music video as film; high-art pop seamlessly blending sound and vision. Focused on an intimate encounter of male and female alter egos exploring pleasure, power and transformation, the film also features religious and mythological iconography throughout.

Over five individual scenes, subtle references to specific moments in Catholic, Roman and Greek narratives are made – the Virgin Mary; Cupid and Psyche; Pluto and Proserpina; Michael and Lucifer; and Satyr and Hermaphroditus. The short film combines 3D capture of Jehnny Beth taken from the original album photo session by Hingston Studio, alongside motion capture shot in early March.

“The embodiment of different voices, and this whole notion of embracing the masculine and feminine characteristics of identity was the main starting point for us,” explains creative director Tom Hingston, who has previously worked with David Bowie, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Grace Jones, and more.

“The record has an attitude and a driving intent – there is a rawness from her lyrics and the production which doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard before.”

To Love Is To Live is available now.

Source: Media release

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