about
Murat Çolak, SWAN (2017)
The swan is an elegant creature floating on the water, alone. It has vibe, it has power. In Islamic art, animals are only meaningful because they ‘are,’ because they exist as realized visions of the Creator. I too am uninterested in the narrativity of my images: I am simply and singularly interested in their beauty.
SWAN is about going out: to the street, to the club, to a ritual, to a party or funeral. It’s about going to places where people sing, dance, laugh, cry, perform, celebrate, and connect. SWAN’s aesthetic is a blend of Turkish/Islamic and pop elements: drone, ambient, trance-pop, dub-techno. It is ritual music. It is the soundtrack to a club for the wasted, to emotional after-hours karaoke, to a huge, postapocalyptic mosque. It ends with a highly processed tilâvet (the Swan) which was recorded during a funeral ceremony in the summer of 2016.
The electronics give SWAN its world. But this world is lifeless without the performers’ presence. Dal Niente are the life in the Swan-world; they are the force that makes it a real place, that turns the maquette to real music. This is fancy music: it is pop, it is beautiful, it is like a swan. In this sense, I think SWAN embodies the power I see in the iconography that inspired it.
Murat Çolak, December 2021
credits
from
object/animal,
released March 25, 2022
Murat Çolak, composer
Murat Çolak, electronics
Emma Hospelhorn, flutes
Andrew Nogal, oboe
Katherine Jimoh, clarinets
Mabel Kwan, piano and synthesizer Kyle Flens, percussion
Tara Lynn Ramsey, violin Chris Wild, cello
Michael Lewanski, conductor
SWAN was recorded by Dan Nichols and Aphorism Studios at Nichols Concert Hall, Evanston, IL. 2021
Mixing and mastering by Murat Çolak. SWAN was commissioned with a grant from New Music USA. It is published by the composer.
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