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Jun 12, 2020 Jehnny Beth By Christopher Roberts

Jehnny Beth, frontperson for British four-piece Savages, has released her debut solo album, To Love Is to Live, today via Caroline. Now she has shared a video for the album’s “We Will Sin Together.” And now that the album’s out, you can stream it below. Plus, today we posted our review of the album and you can read that here. And on Wednesday we posted our Why Not Both podcast interview with Beth (listen here).

Tom Hingston and Markus Lehtonen directed the somewhat NSFW “We Will Sin Together” video, which plays off the album’s artwork and features digital figures resembling living statues intertwined with each other in moments of pleasure and sin.

A press release describes the video in more detail: “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.”

Hingston had this to say in the press release: “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. 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 was due out May 8, but in April it was pushed back to June 12 due to COVID-19.

In November Beth shared the new unrelenting solo song, “I’m the Man,” from the soundtrack of the Netflix/BBC show Peaky Blinders. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then she shared a video for “I’m the Man.” When the album was announced, Beth shared its new single “Flower” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Then she shared a video for “Flower” and announced a new erotic short story collection and photo book, C.A.L.M. (which stands for Crimes Against Love Manifesto). The book features short stories by Beth and photos by Johnny Hostile. C.A.L.M. is due out in July via White Rabbit. Then Beth shared another song from the album, “Innocence.” Then Beth shared another song from the album, “Heroine.”

The second episode of Echoes, Beth’s music program for the French TV channel Arte, also recently premiered and it features performances from King Krule, Nilüfer Yanya, and Beak> (as well as a roundtable interview between Beth and all three artists).

To Love Is to Live was recorded in Los Angeles, London, and Paris with producers Flood, Atticus Ross, and longtime co-creator Johnny Hostile. The album also features The xx’s Romy Madley Croft, Peaky Blinders actor Cillian Murphy, and IDLES’ Joe Talbot.

Savages released their last album, Adore Life, back in 2016 via Matador.

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