Keeley Forsyth: ‘I’m interested in who I’ve become as a 42-year-old woman’

And while Limbs again foregrounds her remarkable, haunting voice and features more collaboration with Leeds-based composer and musician Matthew Bourne, it is a rather different beast to her debut disc, Debris.

Warmer in tone, the eight songs draw from a digital palate of sounds rather than the stark piano, cello and harmonium combination employed before.

“I’d had the songs in my head from Debris for such a long time, so that was more formative and analogue, but once I’d got that out of my system I was just interested to keep making new stuff and moving on,” says the 42-year-old singer-songwriter previously known for her roles in Happy Valley, Heartbeat and the TV adaptation of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.

“The difference is I worked with an electronic musician (Ross Downes), but Matthew Bourne is still on this album. He’s a bit more old-fashioned like me, he likes analogue things, but I wanted to kind of push things and find different sounds.”

Downes might have a solo career in his own right, crafting ambient soundscapes and glitchy electronica, however here he was “very much” venturing into Forsyth’s world.

“I suppose I was trying to direct the piece, which is a similar thing to what I did with Bourne,” she says. “I would tell them of the world where I was and then they would come to me with sounds. Matthew Bourne works quite intuitively and just kind of let him do his thing but I was trying to direct it.

“I love working with both of them. I’m not a trained musician so I can only go so far with instruments, and they’re very easy to work with. Even though they’re both creative themselves, they’re very generous and there’s a respect between the three of us. I’d give them an example of textures or would share images and they’d come back with sounds and I would work on them vocally.”

During the writing and recording process, Forsyth, who is based in Harrogate, again drew on her acting background. “I didn’t know whether the same character would come back,” she says. “I’ve got a little studio in my house and when I came to sing I didn’t know what I would find, but it was a familiar feeling. I definitely felt there was more of the character that was unearthed in Debris. I think that’s why it made sense to call it Limbs because Debris felt like it was more of a kind of organism, but this started to grow limbs, it started to fell a little bit more defined. It’s about the same thing but it doesn’t feel as depressing.”

Although her songs have fantastical elements, Forsyth was keen for them to stay rooted in reality. “That came from the people that inspired me,” she says. “I’m always banging on about Pina Bausch but although her theatre pieces were incredible for me to see, they were always very human. It was very domesticated and real.

“I don’t want to stray too far from reducing it, putting it in reality, not getting ahead of myself. Whenever I feel the urge to be bigger I always try and reduce to what are those feelings that are contained. My life is pretty simple and I’m interested in that, I’m interested in who I’ve become as a 42-year-old woman.”

She found herself “particularly creative” during lockdown, encountering Ross Downes as they worked a piece called From Isolation, which he curated. “I was in the middle of a tour and it got stopped but it then took me into this other place, meeting a new collaborator and I was just enjoying that, I made so much work,” she says. “Having been an actor for so long, I’m not good at a lot of things, but I am very good at making the most of what is a dire situation, I’m well tuned into thinking ‘Right, OK, what can we do?’

“I live a quite isolated life anyway, so it felt like a good opportunity to keep working. I’d met someone new and I wanted to keep going.”

Limbs is not a conscious attempt to make sense of how the pandemic has affected us over the past two years, though. “I don’t cut myself off what is happening but I definitely enter a place which is quite meditative so I don’t know what filters into the words that I sing,” Forsyth says. “I try not to think about it but it’s an internal space that I enter that is there and it doesn’t matter what is going on in the world. It’s a pretty solid space for me to be in.”

The song Wash features a guest contribution from renowned percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, that came about via Ross Downes. “Ross has an artist-run record label and she’d done something with them, I was listening to it and she’s amazing,” Forsyth says. “I’d been finding out more about her, listening to a TED talk that she’d done, so I just asked her to get involved and she was up for it.”

The singer hopes they may work together again at some point. “It’s one of those where I hoped we would make a record together, that just hasn’t worked out yet with logistics and Covid, but I’m hoping that would happen in the future,” she says. “Wash is my favourite song (on Limbs).”

Forsyth is due to tour in March and has been working with choreographers and designers on the shows. “It all has to be within the budget,” she says. “Because of my background as an actor I work within a theatre mindset and then I have to remember that it’s only one night we’re playing, we can’t build a structure in a place that has to go on tour, but saying that, I’m working with a choreographer, it helps me get into the mind of the character. The tour will be rehearsed and devised, it has a concept of character, lighting, design and it will be a whole soundscape performance.”

Limbs is out on The Leaf Label on Friday February 25. Keeley Forsyth plays at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds on March 6. keeleyforsyth.com