HÜMA UTKU – Gnosis

Format: 180gr LP / / download

Release date: july 5th 2019

Following last year‘s “Şeb-i Yelda” EP under the R.A.N. moniker, HÜMA UTKU delivers her debut full-length album under her own name „Gnosis“: a blend of abstract electronics and ritualistic throbbing beats with field recordings and ambience, available as LP and DL.

With “Şeb-i Yelda” (2018) HÜMA UTKU introduced her musical style to a broader audience – storytelling through elements of industrial, techno and abstract electronics, blending in field recordings and traditional instruments from the middle east. A sonic journey that now continues on „Gnosis“ that owns the signature sounds of the Istanbul born / Berlin based electronic artist and pushes them further. The Greek word „Gnosis“ meaning „knowledge reached through intuition and individual experience“ has been used throughout history by various schools of esotericism and thought, to signify gaining insight on workings of the universe. Coherently the album follows the hermit-like, truth-seeking traveller on a path through various times and geographies, through different forms of human experience. Merging field recordings that UTKU did in Greece, Egypt and Turkey with ambient soundscapes, abstract electronics and ritualistic throbbing beats, „Gnosis“ is an intense sonic travelogue where the storyline exceeds the borders any specific musical genre.

All tracks written and produced by Hüma Utku.
Tracks 2, 3 and 5 include samples of field recordings done by Hüma Utku.
Mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin
Artwork & design by Cynthia-ël Hasbani

ERNSTALBRECHT STIEBLER / V.A. – Reworks

Format: 180gram LP incl. DL-code / download

Release date: may 24th 2019

FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER, BÉRANGÈRE MAXIMIN, JASMINE GUFFOND, PHONOSPHERE and KAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEF celebrate ERNSTALBRECHT STIEBLER’s 85th birthday with exclusive reworks of compositions by the German miminalist composer.

ERNSTALBRECHT STIEBLER (born march 29th 1934) is one of the first German composers involved with minimalism and ranks among the pioneers of reductive, repetitive, sound-oriented music. Although honored with several prizes (e.g. the “Bach-Preis der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg”), up to the current day only true connoisseurs of contemporary music are familiar with his oeuvre. On the occasion of his 85th anniversary this year, KARLRECORDS launches a series of albums with original pieces by STIEBLER who besides his compositional work served as director for new music at Hessischer Rundfunk for over 25 years (where he supervised recordings of MORTON FELDMAN, JOHN CAGE, ALVIN LUCIER, GIACINTO SCELSI a.o.) and published numerous essays in Musik-Konzepte, MusikTexte and other music journals. The new STIEBLER series, however, kicks off with “Reworks” – five artists from different musical backgrounds present their approach to and understanding of STIEBLER’s minimalist aesthetics for which he cites “sonority, rhythm, and duration“ as his three principal compositional concerns.

Tracklist & credits:

A1 FRANK BRETSCHNEIDER : Re-Mitteltoene
a re-interpretation of „Mitteltöne“ by Ernstalbrecht Stiebler
recorded 22. and 30.10.2018 in Berlin

A2 BÉRANGÈRE MAXIMIN : Innocence (for and after Ernstalbrecht Stiebler)
rework composed and mixed by B.M. at Home Sweet Home Studio, Paris, 2019.

B1 JASMINE GUFFOND : Remix Algorithm
recorded and produced by Jasmine Guffond and her MaxMSP patch, 2018

B2 PHONOSPHERE : Mit der Zeit im Atem schwebend
mixed by Werner Durand & Jens Strüver
at Haveli Studio, Berlin, fall 2018

B3 KAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEF : Morendo
Ernstalbrecht Stiebler, Sehr Langsam (2005 – 2006), Bozzini Quartet
expanded and edited by Thomas Weber
Studio Kinda Cloudy, Karlsruhe, december 2018
synthesizer: Heike Aumüller
drums: Christopher Brunner
double bass: Johannes Frisch 

mastered & cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin
cover photo by Thomas Herbst
layout & design by kaidoh

BRIAN HARNETTY – Shawnee, Ohio

Format: DVD-size digipak CD + 20pp booklet / download

Release date: april 26th 2019

“Shawnee, Ohio”, the first album by sonic ethnographer BRIAN HARNETTY on Karl, is an intriguing blend of archive recordings of interviews with residents of that small town and melancholic chamber-folk, performed by his ensemble which features a.o. ANNA ROBERTS-GEVALT (ANNA AND ELIZABETH) and PAUL DE JONG (THE BOOKS).

BRIAN HARNETTY (b. 1973) is an interdisciplinary artist working between music composition, sound, and socially engaged art. Rooted in sound archives and the communities connected to them, his body of work contends that the simple act of listening –– to people, places, and their pasts –– can transform our futures.
Both a 2018 A Blade of Grass Fellow for Contemplative Practice and a recipient of the 2016 Creative Capital Performing Arts Award, HARNETTY is deeply involved with local issues of Appalachia and the Midwest. He connects sound archives with performance, ecology, and place – an approach for which he was labelled a “sonic ethnographer”. Many of his pieces transform archival material –– including field recordings, transcriptions, and historic recordings –– into newly re-contextualized sound collages. For more than a decade, this has led to projects with archives such as the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives in Kentucky, the Sun Ra / El Saturn Archives in Chicago, and the Anne Grimes Collection in the Library of Congress. HARNETTY has released four internationally acclaimed albums: “American Winter” (2007), “Silent City” (2009), “The Star-Faced One” (2013, MOJO Magazine’s Underground Album of the Year!), and “Rawhead & Bloodybones” (2015) on Dust-to-Digital, Atavistic, and Scioto Records, and collaborated with reputated musicians like WILL OLDHAM, ANNA ROBERTS-GEVALT (ANNA & ELIZABETH), FRED LONBERG-HOLM, and PAUL DE JONG (THE BOOKS).

In the words of BRIAN HARNETTY himself:

„Shawnee, Ohio“ is a sonic portrait––past and present, real and imagined––of a small Appalachian town in the United States. Shawnee emerged as a coal mining town in the 1870s. A century of decline forced businesses and people to leave, and today local residents fight to hold their buildings and community up amid a new “fracking” boom. Despite an uncertain future, these residents continue to work for environmental, economic, and cultural enrichment. Since 2010, I have been visiting and working in Shawnee. I have also been retracing the footsteps of my family, who immigrated there as Welsh coal miners in the nineteenth century.
“Shawnee, Ohio” focuses on eleven portraits of local residents recounting their lives, work, friendships, and deeds. They talk and sing of mining, disasters, underground fires, social life, protest, and hope. They include women and men, are black and white, and are across generations and centuries. Working directly with community members, I use archival samples of their voices and weave them together with my own ensemble, which features PAUL DE JONG (THE BOOKS) and ANNA ROBERTS-GEVALT (ANNA AND ELIZABETH). Past and present are tangled together in a haunting world of music, stories, and images.“ 

AROVANE + PORYA HATAMI – C.H.R.O.N.O.S.

Format: 180gr LP / download

Release date: april 26th 2019

On “C.H.R.O.N.O.S”, their 3rd album on KARL, AROVANE and PORYA HATAMI deliver five delicate ambient pieces, rich in textures and zen-like atmospheres.

After “Organism” (2017) and the musique concrete influenced “Organism_evolution” (2018) UWE ZAHN alias AROVANE and PORYA HATAMI continue their sonic explorations with “C.H.R.O.N.O.S.”, the fifth collaborational album by the German electronic producer and the Iranian sound artist. While the duo’s last album was a collection of 23 mostly short tracks, each an acribic examination of sounds that treated by techniques like modular synthesis, granular synthesis, spectral processing, granular synthesis, resynthesis and resonator / modal synthesis, ““C.H.R.O.N.O.S.” consists of five longer compositions that focus on creating a contemplative, zen-like atmosphere of subtle beauty. Rich in details, carefully sound-designed, AROVANE and PORYA HATAMI prove once more their top notch skills when it’s about creating state of the art contemporary ambient.

Quotes on previous albums:

# Organism (2017)

“an album of fleet, subtle beauty.” The Wire

“some of the subtlest, elusive material in either’s catalogue.” Boomkat

“a dark, mysterious, but extremely detailed sound – as alive and moving as nature’s finest organisms.” Ambientblog.net

# Organism_evolution (2018)

“Hypnotique.“ Silenceandsound.me

“a soulful high flight, as meaningful as the best works of Biosphere or Oval” Musiquemachine.com

LABRECQUE / BARAKAT – Terminal Desert

Format: LP  / download

Release date: march 15th 2019

PAUL LABRECQUE (SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN) and GHAZI BARAKAT (PHAROAH CHROMIUM) present two epic cosmic, dystopian tracks where guitars, synths and traditional instruments blend into an anarchic sound system.

After excessive years in rock bands like THE GOLDEN SHOWERS or his solo project BOY FROM BRAZIL, time had come for the German-Palestinian artist GHAZI BARAKAT to develop a new aesthetic – the birth of his alias PHAROAH CHROMIUM where BARAKAT creates “meta-music for meta-people in a meta-world”, or in other words: a mutoid blend of post-krautrock, psychedelism, free jazz, ancient rituals, science fiction and electronics. So far the Berlin based sonic performer released a couple of solo albums on labels like GRAUTAG or TAPEWORM and a triple LP with krautrock legend GÜNTER SCHICKERT. For his latest output he decided to simply use his civilian name BARAKAT, as does PAUL LaBRECQUE (SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN) who contributes guitar and synthesizer to the two side-long tracks. “Jajouka Pipe Dream” is a clear reference to the MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA, with lots of flutes and percussion, a very rhythmical, ritualistic track, while “Planet R-101” turns out a spacey trip with elements of krautrock and Kosmische Musik  / Berliner Schule.

What may sound contradictionary on paper functions perfectly on LP – freeform / free-floating music, absorbing and integrating a wide range of influences and inspirations, sounds and styles – and highly psychedelic!

Credits:

Ghazi Barakat: guembri, moog synthesizer, beats, Rauschpfeife

Paul LaBrecque: guitar, synthesizer

Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

Artwork + photography: Nicolas Moulin

HANS CASTRUP – Heterogeneous Cell Information

Format: LP  / download

Release date: march 15th 2019

On his 3^rd album for KARL, painter, musician, photographer and video artist HANS CASTRUP continues his explorations of analogue and digital sound sources, creating a dystopian soundtrack that melts dark ambience with electro-acoustic means. 

After “Shadowplay” (2013) and “Lizenzfreie Restwärme” (2016), “Heterogeneous Cell Information” is the 3^rd album (and first LP) by HANS CASTRUP on Karl. CASTRUP, born in 1957 and working as independent artist on the fields of painting, music, photography, video, graphics and text since graduating as MA at the University of Osnabrück, sticks with his working method of multi-layer compositions: various analogue and digital sound sources such as synthesizers, field recordings or tapes are being edited, manipulated and re-organized as abstract-reduced compositions meandering between melodiousness and experimental collages whose reference system ranges from new music and avantgarde to today’s electronics. But a simple, formulaic repetition of approved means wouldn’t satisfy CASTRUP’s artist soul, and so he invited CARLA WORGULL to contribute overtone singing and other advanced ways of vocalization which intensify the overall alien atmosphere of the eight compositions.

“Heterogeneous Cell Information” is available as download and an ultra-limited edition of 100 handnumbered items (clear transparent vinyl, silk-screened sleeve).

SABA ALIZADEH – Scattered Memories

Format: LP  / download

Release date: february 15th 2019

On his debut album “Scattered Memories”, the composer, musician and true master on the Iranian spike fiddle kamancheh SABA ALIZADEH blends his instrumental virtuosity with spherical electronics, samples of Persian music instruments and field recordings from his hometown Tehran. 

Born in Tehran in 1983 as son of the world renowned Tar and Setar virtuoso HOSSEIN ALIZADEH, SABA ALIZADEH studied the Iranian spike fiddle with SAEED FARAJPOURY and KEYHAN KALHOR plus photography and later experimental sound art with MARK TRAYLE at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. His musical activities that lead him all around the globe for performances (a.o. at Carnegie Hall) branch into 2 different areas: on the one side ALIZADEH is a highly reputated virtuoso on his traditional instrument, on the other he likes to approach music from a more experimental / technological aspect in his electronic / electro-acoustic pieces. This not being enough, he founded Noise Works in 2014, a platform and label for organizing experimental concerts and for the transfer of knowledge of music technologies among young Iranian musicians which makes him a central figure at the forefront of the current, very vivid Persian music scene that gained a lot of attention through artists like SIAVASH AMINI, PORYA HATAMI and of course SOTE who included a track by ALIZADEH on the compilation “Girih: Iranian Sound Artists” that he had curated.

In 2018, ALIZADEH self-released his debut “Scattered Memories” on CD in Iran which now, in a reworked version, sees its deserved world-wide release as LP and DL. Over the course of 10 tracks ALIZADEH melts his 2 musical worlds into 1: tradition meets modernism, eastern sounds meet western production, folklore meets contemporary electronics. An album that will appeal to an open-minded “world music” audience as well as fans of current streams like ambient or drone in its most subtle forms.

BENJAMIN FINGER / JAMES PLOTKIN / MIA ZABELKA – Pleasure-Voltage

Format: LP  / download

Release date: february 15th 2019

BENJAMIN FINGER, JAMES PLOTKIN and MIA ZABELKA craft a mesmerizing sonic world that buzzes and drones, glitches and slithers, eventually careening into unexplored musical territory.

“Pleasure-Voltage” was born in the mind (and studio) of BENJAMIN FINGER – a composer, electronic music producer, DJ, photographer and film-maker based in Oslo / Norway who in recent years has become quite a prolific artist, expanding his stylistic palette from piano miniatures and off-kilter pop experiments to lysergic, dream-like sound collages spiced with gentle warmth and sublime melody. These ingredients are also characteristic on this latest work where FINGER set the musical frame before passing it on to his inspired collaborators: MIA ZABELKA who for decades now has been involved in countless projects, be it as musician (violin / electronics), curator or founder of the international sound art centre klang.haus and who has worked with a.o. JOHN ZORN, FRED FRITH, ELECTRIC INDIGO, ROBIN RIMBAUD (SCANNER), DÄLEK or PHIL MINTON. And last but not least there’s JAMES PLOTKIN who entered the scene with his first band OLD LADY DRIVERS (or OLD) on EARACHE in 1987 and later was a member of KHANATE (with a.o. STEPHEN O’MALLEY) while also exploring the areas of dark ambient and electronics by working with or remixing SCORN / MICK HARRIS,  K.K: NULL and many more.

On “Pleasure-Voltage” which had its live-premiere at the REWIRE festival 2018, the trio crafts a mesmerizing sonic world that buzzes and drones, glitches and slithers, eventually careening into unexplored musical territory somewhere between ambient / drone / psychedelia.

Benjamin Finger: synthesizers, piano, field recordings, electronic devices, alien objects.

James Plotkin: electric guitar, granular synthesis

Mia Zabelka: E-violin, electronic devices, alien objects.

Mixed by James Plotkin

Mastered & vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

Artwork by Caro Mikalef
Mastered and vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

JASMINE GUFFOND – Degradation Loops

Format: LP (100 handnumbered items, clear vinyl) / download

Release date: october 26th 2018

Australian sound artist JASMINE GUFFOND presents “Degradation Loops”, initially a sixteen day process of sonic destruction created for an art exhibition.

Australian sound artist JASMINE GUFFOND’s “Degradation Loops” started out as a sixteen day long composition for an exhibition at Sydney gallery 55 in December 2016. Literally using the ‘degrade’ object from the MaxMSP programming software, “Degradation Loops” gradually and completely bit crushed her 2015 album ‘Yellow Bell’. A process of sonic destruction unfolded in response to a group show where visual artists destroyed and reassembled their work, to create new work, and to question the dominance of commercial imperatives within art. Here GUFFOND has especially created a thirty minute variation for the vinyl medium.

Engaging the process of bit crushing, in “Degradation Loops” the sampling rate and bit depth of the audio signal is step by step, gradually, and completely reduced. The algorithmic unraveling of these tracks renders them increasingly discordant and unpredictable as time passes. Using intricate and highly articulate audio loops from an existing authored work, sound gradually becomes noise. Beauty is broken down allowing another type of beauty to emerge. By deliberately deconstructing the audio signal of otherwise highly deliberative compositions, “Degradation Loops” speaks to a contemporary audio realm where principles of High Definition dominate, in an overall musicscape preconceived as uniform. An industry standard sampling rate of 44.1kHz, and a bit rate of 16 was established by Philips and Sony with the Compact Disc format in 1982. At the time this became an encoding standard by which to communicate, listen, and make music.

JASMINE GUFFOND is a composer and sound artist from Sydney, Australia, who lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Focused on electronic composition across music and sound art contexts, her practice spans live performance, recording and the capacity of sound installation to interrogate site. Through the sonification of data she addresses the potential of sound to engage with contemporary political questions. Her music draws upon influences from experimental electronic, drone, techno and avant-garde. Working with abstract sound as much as traditional musical forms to create a concordant relationship between a sound that holds emotive power and musicality, and a sensitive microscopic study of electro acoustic phenomena.

Jasmine has exhibited internationally including Akademie der Künste (DE), Deutsche Oper (DE) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (AU), performed live internationally at music and electronic art festivals, and recorded music for CD and 12inch vinyl releases with the Staubgold, Monika Enterprise and Sonic Pieces labels. She completed the Sound Studies, master in arts program at the Universität der Künste, Berlin Germany, 2015 and received the ‘Working Grant for New Music und Sound Art’ from the Berlin Senate in 2016.

mastered + cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin
artwork by Katorina Pling

AUDREY CHEN – Runt Vigor

Format: LP  / download

Release date: september 28th 2018

AUDREY CHEN’s long-awaited new solo album “Runt Vigor” is an adventurous sonic exploration of the voice, cello and analog electronics.

AUDREY CHEN began her relationship with sound through the cello and voice over 30 years ago and since the past 15 years, her predominant focus has been her solo work, joining together the extended and inherent vocabularies of the cello, voice and analog electronics (with all sounds created without electronic effect or enhancement other than amplification).

More recently, she has begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument, delving even more deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. She derives her sound material in continuous process, championing the „in-between“ and overlooked. Regardless of instrument, CHEN’s mode of experimentation touches both the abstractly beautiful and the aggressively unsettling, creating a kind of curiously imagined architecture, non-prosaic song or ritual that reaches beyond gravity or language.

Recent projects, aside from performing solo, include her long running voices duo with PHIL MINTON, duos HISS & VISCERA with modular synth player RICHARD SCOTT, BEAM SPLITTER with Norwegian trombonist HENRIK MUNKEBY NØRSTEBØ, and the “romantic noise duo” AFTERBURNER with DORON SADJA (electronics/light projection). Past projects include work with German conceptual artist JOHN BOCK, a duo with NYC abstract turntablist MARIA CHAVEZ, and a quartet with NATE WOOLEY, C. SPENCER YEH and TODD CARTER that released a LP on MONOTYPE. Her new projects include a double duo/quartet with BEAM SPLITTER and STREIFENJUNKO’s, EIVIND LØNNING and ESPEN REINERTSEN and MOPCUT with LUKAS KÖNIG and JULIEN DESPREZ.

American born but currently based in Berlin, CHEN has performed across Europe, North/South America and Asia at numerous festivals including Festival Beyond Innocence (Osaka, JP), Maerzmusik (Berlin, DE), Klangspuren Festival (Schwaz, AT), Sound of Stockholm (Stockholm, SE), Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway, Jazzfest Saalfelden, Color Out of Space (Brighton), Wels Music Unlimited (Wels, AT), 2PI Festival (Hangzhou, CN).

DAVID HARRINGTON of the KRONOS QUARTET has described CHEN’s work as „fascinating and gripping“ and „possessing something extremely vital and vivid….“, and “Runt Vigor” exemplifies these sentiments and so much more!

Recorded by Koenraad Ecker and Roy Carroll (in Berlin 2015 and 2018)
Mixed by Richard Scott
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin
Cover collages by Id M Theft Able 

Tracklist:  A1. Heavy  A2. In The  A3. Mouth  B.   Heavy In The Hand

GIULIO ALDINUCCI – Disappearing In A Mirror

Format: LP / CD / download

Release date: september 21st 2018

Italian sound artist GIULIO ALDINUCCI drops his 2^nd album on Karl: “Disappearing In A Mirror” is again a truly masterfully composed and sound-designed ambient masterpiece and a more than worthy follow-up to the critically acclaimed “Borders And Ruins” which made it onto several year’s best lists for 2017.

Over the course of four solo albums on labels like DRONARIVM plus EPs and collaborative albums (a.o. with IAN HAWGOOD), GIULIO ALDINUCCI successively has been refining his skills as composer and sound designer. His elegant style which blends ambient and field recordings came to full impact on his 2017 album “Borders And Ruins” which gained the Italian sound artist a lot of critical praise and made it onto several year’s best lists, a.o. Acloserlisten.com. ALDINUCCI’s latest effort is again not only a musical masterpiece of sublime beauty and sacral majesty, it also deals with philosophical concerns. Where “Borders …” was a reflection on the instability of borders – borders as an extreme attempt to discriminate and rationalize that turns into a source of chaos and cultural ruins on both sides – and their impact on the relationship between people and territory, “Disappearing In A Mirror” raises the very personal question of identity. In the words of ALDINUCCI himself:

“ ‘Disappearing In A Mirror’ focuses on the fluidity of the identity concept, highlighting the harmonious coexistence of contradictory elements and the transitional features that characterize every transformation. It is a reflection on the current situation of change and disruption and at the same time it is a gaze into the human timeless soul and its inner soundscapes.”

Available as limited edition coloured vinyl in silk-screened sleeve, CD and download.

Mastered by Alexandr Vatagin
Vinyl cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin
Artwork by Joe Gilmore

KONSTRUKT + KEIJI HAINO – A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire

Format: 180 gram LP incl. DL code / download

Release date: august 31st 2018

2^nd album by Turkish free jazzers KONSTRUKT and the Japanese avant-garde / noise icon KEIJI HAINO, this time recorded live in concert.

Celebrating their 10^th anniversary these days, KONSTRUKT have since been creating an impressive catalogue including collaborations / performances with significant musicians like PETER BRÖTZMANN, JOE MCPHEE, WILLIAM PARKER, AKIRA SAKATA, MARSHALL ALLEN, EVAN PARKER, THURSTON MOORE, MICHAEL ZERANG, ALFRED HARTH or ALEXANDER HAWKINS that gained them an ever growing audience and media attention (e.g. a recent WIRE feature), and they keep exploring new grounds. Like in 2016 when KONSTRUKT invited KEIJI HAINO to their home town Istanbul for a recording session that resulted in a quite unique album: “A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire” offered – besides all the elements you may well expect from such a musical meeting like KONSTRUKT’s “acerbic razor-edged sound” (MARK CORROTO, ALLABOUTJAZZ) and HAINO’s unmistakable voice / guitar explosions – some actual surprises like the really groovy opening track with a funky feel and a kind of 70’s fusion style album closer. Two days later the free jazz quartet and the Japanese avant-garde icon continued their adventure with a public performance at SalonIKSY, pushing things further and raising the level of energy and rawness. Carrying the same title ““A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire” proves a condign sister release to their previous studio effort. Or, as the famous Asian phrase goes: “same same but different!”

Press quotes on the previous KONSTRUKT / KEIJI HAINO album:

“…what we have here is basically a really fucking great free / fusion / jazz / thing band with Haino playing along. Possibly uniquely among Haino records I’ve heard …”     Freq.org.uk

“Recommendation!”     Freejazzblog.org

R.A.N. – Şeb-i Yelda

Format: 12inch + DL code / download

Release date: august 31^st 2018

KARL is excited to welcome a new artist on board: R.A.N. is the dark electronic / rhythmic ambient music project by HÜMA UTKU. “Şeb-i Yelda” is available as 12” and download.

Hailing from İstanbul and based in Berlin for a couple of years now, HÜMA UTKU has been a prolific artist lately: as R.A.N. (Roads At Night) she released her debut album “Her Trembling Ceased“, followed by the remix album ‚Remixed: Stories Retold‘ (both 2015, PARTAPART RECORDS), and contributed several tracks and remixes to various compilations. Besides studio production, she travels the planet to perform live or as DJ, and in November / December 2017 UTKU was Artist in Residency at YARA MEKAWEI’s Submarine Studio, Cairo.

The title of her debut on KARL, “Şeb-i Yelda” (pronounced Shab-e Yalda in English), is a Persian term that signifies ‘the longest night’. Inspired by the Ottoman poet BOSNIAN SABIT EFENDI’s verses, R.A.N. created four new, very personal tracks, developing further her musical language by fusing traditional instruments with deep electronic sounds, distortion and dark ambience, in order to create intense atmospheres of anger, anxiety, grief – but also empowerment and hope. These compositions are UTKU’s personal reflections on the long lasting devastation and turmoil in the Middle East as well as witnessing the individual experiences related to these happenings. The titles translate as:’“Şeb-i Yelda” (The Longest Night), “Ay” (The Moon), “Sabah” (The Morning) and “Kul” (The Servant).