About this Event
Commissioned by Outlands Network and Full of Noises, the work expands on HAND TO MOUTH, the 2025 EP by Keeley Forsyth and long‑time collaborator Matthew Bourne, originally released on FatCat Records/130701. The EP explored restraint and intimacy through voice and piano; this new production transforms that material into a multi‑layered live experience.
At the centre of the performance is a dialogue between song and story. Acclaimed French writer Jean‑Baptiste Del Amo has contributed a specially commissioned short story, The No‑End House, written in response to the EP.
Forsyth’s song cycle is interwoven with Del Amo’s text, creating a hybrid form that moves between music and monologue, gig and play. The result is a tense, immersive work shaped by themes of memory, regret, longing and human frailty.
The live ensemble brings further depth to the reimagining. Polish cellist and composer Resina develops and extends Bourne’s original piano compositions, adding new textures, electronics and sonic weight. Sound designer and producer Ross Downes provides a dark ambient backdrop of drone and field recordings for the spoken sections, surrounding Forsyth’s voice with an unsettling, atmospheric sound world.
HAND TO MOUTH TO is conceived as a compelling and emotionally charged performance that challenges and comforts in equal measure, building a concise but powerful sonic and theatrical environment. Live dates in 2026 include the premiere at BRDCST Festival, Brussels for which Forsyth is Guest Curator, and UK events at Cumbria and Liverpool. Further performances to be announced soon.
Voice - KEELEY FORSYTH
Piano / samples - MATTHEW BOURNE
Cello - RESINA
Story - JEAN BAPTISTE DEL AMO
Sound Design - ROSS DOWNES
Producer - LAURA DUCCESCHI
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Schedule:
19:00 for 19:30 prompt start. Tickets: £10 / £8 concession.
KEELEY FORSYTH is a composer, singer and actor from Oldham in the north-west of England. Built upon sparse arrangements, Forsyth’s music is centred around a singular, emotionally raw and magnetic vocal delivery, by turns devastating and uplifting. The characters who populate her songs tell stories of the high and low tides; of freedom and entrapment, of hard-won triumphs and the darker corners of domestic life. Over the last years Keeley has built a reputation for dramatically captivating live performances reflecting her interests in contemporary theatre, dance and movement.
MATTHEW BOURNE - With a reputation as a fearlessly unpredictable pianist and composer, Matthew Bourne is a passionate explorer of sound, possessed of a burning desire to make music on anything old, broken or infirm. Born in Avebury, Wiltshire in 1977, Bourne first came to national attention as a winner of the Perrier Jazz Award in 2001, which was followed by an award for innovation at the BBC Radio Jazz Awards in 2002, and the International Jazz Festivals Organisation’s International Jazz Award in 2005. Renowned for his intensely personal and sometimes confrontational solo work, Bourne’s uncanny ability to balance delicacy and virtuosity, while establishing a close affinity with his audience, have become hallmarks of his concert performances.
RESINA is alias of Warsaw-based cellist and composer Karolina Rec. Her work is centered on the cello shaped through extended techniques, electronic processing, and physical performance. Since signing with FatCat / 130701, Resina has released three solo albums: Resina (2016), Traces (2018), and Speechless (2021), which features compositions for a 24-person choir. Resina builds her personal musical language by blurring the boundaries between seemingly different musical genres, playing with the tension between the biological, animalistic aspects of performance and the electronic and
amplified sound world. In addition to her solo work and compositions for film, theater, and video games, Resina collaborates with experimental music artists - her latest duo Ego Death with electronic music composer Aho Ssan, released debut album in 2025 by Subtext Recordings and presented live shows at festivals such as Unsound, Berlin Atonal, and Rewire.
JEAN-BAPTISTE DEL AMO born in 1981, is one of France’s most exciting and ambitious young writers. He is the author of Pornographia, Le sel, and Une éducation libertine, which won the Goncourt First Novel Prize. His fourth novel, Animalia, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in Frank Wynne’s translation in 2019, was a TLS Book of the Year 2019 and won the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize. The Son of Man, first published by Gallimard in 2021, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2024.
ROSS DOWNES is a UK based composer, producer and artist. Mostly working electronically Ross has developed a style encompassing electronic, contemporary minimalist and dark ambient to produce music that balances experimentation and sound design with emotive preoccupations.In 2011 Ross cofounded the artist run label Trestle Records which, as well as releasing records, focuses on facilitating new instrumental collaborations between artists. He has worked with a vast range of musicians in his role as curator, including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Kuljit Bhamra, Roly Porter, Charles Hayward, Simon Fisher Turner, Julia Kent, Leo Abrahams, Peter Zummo, Seb Rochford, John Tilbury. Producer credits most recently include singer Keeley Forsyth’s critically acclaimed LP’s Limbs and the Hollow, which also led to the couple working together and being awarded the 2022 commission for the New Music Biennial to realise their collaborative performance piece Bog Body.
LAURA DUCCESCHI is an award-winning independent music creative who works with unique artists who defy constraints and explore excellence. Laura is an experienced Live Music Programmer & Creative Producer as well as Devising and Directing Music Led works of scale. She started her professional career presenting live electronic music club nights and remains driven by raw, authentic and punk spirit within performance. Contemporary music is at the centre of her work, but she draws inspiration from visual art, film, theatre, and dance. Her passion lies in new works, projects, and artists that exist at the intersection of sonic, visual, and narrative worlds. For 20+ years she has built a reputation for protecting the vision of the artists she works with, building ambitious contemporary music programmes and productions and presenting projects with leading international platforms such as Barbican (UK), Holland Festival, Rewire Festival (NL), Sydney Opera House (AUS), Musikfest (DE), Sonica (SCT), Le Lieu Unique (FR), amongst others. Laura is Creative Producer and Manager for Keeley Forsyth.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Full of Noises, Abbey Road, Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00 to GBP 10.00
