Hüma Utku pres. Dracones + blackbody_radiation
silent green presents
Hüma Utku
Hailing from Istanbul, the Berlin based electronic music composer and sound artist Hüma Utku explores the possibilities of how sound textures and rhythm can be used to evoke a sense of ancient within advanced electronic music. With an overall disregard for genres she fuses field recordings, acoustic instruments, atmospheric ambience; into harmonious noise and harsh ritualistic rhythms as means to utilize sound and music as tools for storytelling. Combining her practice of music with her studies in psychology; Utku's works draw inspiration from human condition, mysticism and folklore.
Her 2018 EP Şeb-i Yelda and her 2019 debut album Gnosis earned Utku recognition for her unique approach of storytelling through electronic music. Her sophomore album The Psychologist is a series of sonic essays based around themes of psychological phenomena and can be read as a musical enquiry into the human condition.
Her new album Dracones will celebrate it's release in April 2025.
Dracones, used in reference to the mediaeval latin term Hic sunt dracones (here be dragons), used to explain the unexplored, dangerous territories on world maps marked by dragons or monsters, expressing the fear of chaos and danger. The work is about an uncharted territory, marking the centre of home and self - instead of the untravelled, far off corners of the world map.
Inspired by the topics of motherhood, homecoming and belonging; Dracones explores a study of familial demonology, labour and parting, matrescence, matriphagy and how these relate to human experience of love. Musically, it journeys on a wide array of sonic expression through the gnarly, industrial, deep yet also the brightest layers of electronic experimentation.
blackbody_radiation
Andrew Black, who hails from one of the UK's post industrial North West Milltowns has a sensitive feeling for space and its acoustics. Having trained as a designer and operated within the realms of architecture and public space, it was only natural to extend his interest to manipulating field recordings. The six ghostly drones collected on debut album Ultra-Materials on the Faitiche label, provide an insight into Black's highly sensitive minimalism: they stand for a subtly meandering mediation on room acoustics and place, which are manipulated with the help of sound masking, among other things – that is, the addition and superimposition of artificially generated frequencies to mask unwanted sounds. Sometimes the pieces are reminiscent of warm engine noise, sometimes one thinks of carefully captured natural phenomena. Their strength lies in their elusiveness: free of concrete attributions or musical location, they can unfold their hypnotic pull without revealing anything about their origins. Harmonics at times shimmer, at times warble and at times coexist. It is an attempt to get in touch with our listening abilities.
Saturday, April 26
Doors: 7 pm / Start: 8 pm
Kuppelhalle
Tickets