Arek Gulbenkoglu has been releasing under-the-radar, low key, yet astonishing work for a number of years. It’s difficult to assign a convenient classification to his varied but always-unique output; perhaps Jon Dale summed it up best here:
If you’ve been following Arek Gulbenkoglu’s recorded work over the past six years, or so, you’ll have come to expect a certain consistency in surprise, a capacity for his small-run CD-Rs, and two LPs on Penultimate Press, to catch the listener unawares. It’s not so much that his approach is sui generis, though I think you could make a pretty convincing argument for this, if you were so inclined. It’s more to do with a very particular sensibility – perhaps even a broader ideological position on the possibilities of organised sound, much as that may read as glibly academic in tone. This is someone who knows what they want, and what they’re doing.
All his work is worthy of your attention, but “Three Days Afterwards” stands out for me as his most affecting. From the almost voyeuristic locations recordings which open the side to the shearing bleeps which close it, we’re spun between intensely purified microtonal oscillations and spare, pointillist percussions according an underlying logic which evades easy categorisation. Impenetrably encrypted electronic abstraction.
Use the code AREK for 10% off Arek Gulbenkoglu releases (expires 14 June 2022).
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