Listening and Being Heard: klank.ist ensemble’s V. DİALOGS
Four pieces, one by each member, recorded in Istanbul in 2019. ~34 minutes.
klank.ist ensemble is the standing group of the klank.ist collective, founded in Istanbul in 2019: a female-identifying and minority-led ensemble of composers and improvisers who work from free improvisation through semi-structured improvisation, comprovisation and open form. Hierarchy is questioned, boundaries stay fluid. V. DİALOGS is their first studio album, recorded at the ITU MIAM studios in June 2019 and released in April 2021, and it is the clearest document of how the group thinks: four pieces, one by each member, every one of them grown from the dialogue in the room.
The ensemble’s own account of the sessions is worth quoting in spirit. They set out to nourish the dialogues through which they made their sounds and voices heard, valuing the fluid manifestations of activity and passivity: everyone affected by everyone, being affected and affecting one another in turn. The title nods to Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues, and the record was made, in their words, at a time in which every silenced voice needed to be heard and reintroduced through dialogue. The monologue becomes a dialogue. That is the whole programme.
Four pieces, four voices
Each member leads one piece, and you can hear four sensibilities sharing one language. Aslı Kobaner’s “Principle of Pleasure” opens the record from the electric guitar, electronics threaded through it. Eda Er’s “I took a Train to Mars” is the longest piece at nearly twelve minutes, electronics and voice carrying a journey that keeps changing scale. Fulya Uçanok’s “Circumstantial Multitudes” works with electronics and the massed voices of the group. Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu’s “C Atmosphere” closes it from the cello, which spends as much time being air and pressure as being a string instrument.
Everyone sings. That is the detail that gives the record its character. Cello, guitar and two electronics rigs is a texture that could easily go cold; the vocals, shared across all four players, keep it in the body, and the moments when the instruments fall away and only the voices remain are where the album’s title lands.
The verdict
Ensemble improvisation records are often documents first and music second. V. DİALOGS is both, and the studio treatment is a large part of why. Laçin Şahin and Oğuz Öz’s recording, Şahin’s mix and Gökhan Deneç’s master give the four pieces a depth of field that lets the listener move around inside them, and Ömer Özçelik’s artwork gives them a single face. It is the record to hear if you want to know where the klank.ist lockdown singles came from, and where the collective’s translocal Sonic Cartographies series was heading. Four people listening hard enough that being heard follows.
V. DİALOGS by klank.ist ensemble (Eda Er — electronics, vocals; Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu — cello, vocals; Aslı Kobaner — electric guitar, electronics, vocals; Fulya Uçanok — electronics, vocals). Recorded at ITU MIAM, Istanbul, June 2019. Recording: Laçin Şahin, Oğuz Öz. Recording assistants: Utku Gürler, Hamit Sultanov. Mixing: Laçin Şahin. Mastering: Gökhan Deneç. Design and artwork: Ömer Özçelik. Released April 2021.
Tracklist: 1. Aslı Kobaner — Principle of Pleasure (8:27) · 2. Eda Er — I took a Train to Mars (11:49) · 3. Fulya Uçanok — Circumstantial Multitudes (7:03) · 4. Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu — C Atmosphere (7:10).
Also available at nyxphere.bandcamp.com.