Ekin Fil - S/T LP
Operating out of Istanbul, Ekin Fil is the solo project of Turkish musician Ekin Üzeltüzenci. Her music first came to the ears of many by way of “Language,” a 2011 cassette release on the Root Strata label. “Language” presented listeners with a fractured, hazy soundworld in which half-remembered melodies and wraith-like vocals cohered into dark and hypnotic masses. On this self-titled album, Ekin opens the curtains a bit, letting in some light and offering up an even more refined album. This is a haunting collection of songs that wouldn’t sound out of place on Drunken Fish Records in 1995, effectively channeling the ghosts of Roy Montgomery and the Bristol shoegaze scene, while occupying similar sonic climes as those traversed by Grouper and Jessica Bailiff. “Anything Anywhere” opens the album and articulates its central concerns, with obscured, rhythmic guitar shapes coiling around Ekin’s ethereal voice. Later, field recordings bring us into the blackened night of “Two Stars,” one of the album’s most stark and exhilarating movements. Ultimately “Ekin Fil” is a remarkably cohesive statement, an album of devotional pieces that function together to form a beautiful, faraway whole.