EKIN FIL – SLEEPWALKERS
“… Vaporous tone and forlorn, distant song, as if plucked from a dream” reads the description of the music of Ekin Fil (Ekin Üzeltüzenci, from Istanbul, Turkey). And that is exactly how it sounds on this new album – her 17th (according to Discogs) and the seventh for the Helen Scarsdale Agency label. Obviously, Ekin found a fitting place on this label ‘dedicated to a particular thread of post-industrial research, surrealist collage, refined minimalism, caustic electro-acoustics, sublimated dream-pop, obfuscated field recordings, recombinant noise, existential vacancy, and then some’.
It may be plucked from a dream, not necessarily from a nice dream, but from ‘the unsettled state of existence between sleep and being awake. […] Loves lost. A world broken. All is not hopeless, but there is a considerable amount of shit to wade through.’
That last sentence may also be a fitting description for the ambient music genre in general, but it definitely does nót refer to Ekin Fil’s music itself – which is haunting yet beautiful, but with sharp edges where needed.
It is no coincidence that Ekin Fil is often mentioned in the same sentence as Grouper (she opened for Grouper in the past) – her music will definitely appeal to the same audience. But if you want references one could also mention the music of Tim Hecker or Rafael Anton Irisarri. Such comparisons are tricky, and only useful to give an idea of what to expect to listeners who don’t know her work (yet). It’s clear that Ekin Fil has developed her own, intriguing personal style and found her own place. She has become a ‘reference artist’ herself.
TRISTAN DA CUNHA – HIDDEN SEA
Tristan da Cunha sounds like a person’s name, but it’s not. At least, not in this case (several artists and bands can be found under this particular name, but it is also the name of a small island in the South Atlantic Ocean). Here, it’s a duo from Italy, formed by Francesco Fara (guitar, sampler, laptop) and Luca Scotti (drums, ocean drum, cymbals). Hidden Sea is their sixth release.
Hidden Sea unlocks the ‘hidden world’ of sound frequencies present in instruments such as the drums and cymbals. They were recorded using a Zoom H1 close to the sources, (of course) heavily sampled and processed, and finally completed by adding guitar parts.
The result is a 30-minute set of mysteriously moving soundscapes with a rather dark atmosphere – which is well-captured in this accompanying video: