When Deniz Kurtel first arrived in New York, she was an aspiring economist, but the city had other plans for her. After completing two serious Master’s degrees, she started playing around with LEDs. Inspired by New York’s underground music scene and particularly the Wolf+Lamb crew, with whom she lived at the Marcy Hotel in Brooklyn, she soon started experimenting with sounds as well. Just one year later, her debut album Music Watching Over Me is out on Damain Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels label and she is trotting the world in support of it like there’s no tomorrow. Deniz’ sound is deep and personal, at once subtle and emotionally charged, simple, yet expansive; like Moderat with a feminine touch. halcyon’s Ina Sotirova caught up with her midway through her US Tour in Miami to talk life, music and balance.
halcyon: Tell me about growing up in Turkey.
Deniz Kurtel: I’m from Izmir, on the West Coast.
h: Is that at the beach?
DK: The city itself is not, but my family has a summerhouse half an hour away and I spend most of my summers there. We also have a boat so three-four months of the year we’re on the boat. I continue to be very close with my parents and love spending a lot of time in nature.
h: What’s the music scene like in Turkey?
DK: It’s not the same as other places in Europe. I just played there actually. There’s a bit of a scene developing definitely in Istanbul. There are a couple of clubs, like 11.11 and Mini Muzik Hol, also Indigo and Babylon that are well known, as well as these bars called Otto in different locations. These are smaller underground parties where people know about the music, but the scene is still developing. It’s mostly deep house, although there are also big trance and techno festivals, as well as big clubs like Pacha and others on the Bosphorus where rich people go, but the places I’m talking about are not commercial, but smaller, underground parties.
h: And now you’re living in Berlin. Tell me about your experience there.
DK: I spent a lot of time there in the summers over the past two-three years. I had been renting temporarily but now I just found a long-term space and it’s perfect for me. It’s a big space that I can use as a studio and living space and showroom and personal gallery to show my LED work. It has a storefront and a backspace and a basement where I can have both studios – for music and for the LEDs. I just moved in there last month but I’ve been touring a lot and playing every weekend so that’s been very distracting… I’m doing the US tour for the next two months and will be based in New York duiring April and May but hopefully in the summer I’ll have more free time so I can finish setting it up.
h: Do you miss New York?
DK: I miss New York a lot. It’s where I lived most of my adult life and I’m looking forward to going back. In New York everything is available all the time, there’s amazing food and everything is more convenient. It’s very motivating, dynamic and inspiring. Berlin is more peaceful and quite, which is also good. In New York, living at the Marcy was a crazy situation – next to the highway and there was always people coming and going. For now the setup in Berlin is good. It’s so much cheaper and it’s quiet and peaceful. The problem is that I don’t speak German. It’s fine in the day-to-day because most people I interact with speak English anyway but it’s the little things, like getting a wireless connection…
h: So how do you maintain your creativity with all this traveling and moving around?
DK: I never really thought about it, it’s just natural. It’s just in you… And the whole craziness feeds into it too, being exposed to all the music and stuff. I think if you are creative, you just make something out of whatever is in your life, that’s how I see it. The challenge is more the logistics – actually sitting down and working. I try to balance so during the week I focus on work and the weekends I dedicate to the album tour. I started last year and I only now started playing every weekend. But after the summer it shouldn’t be so busy. I’d like to take a break and focus on new projects.
h: The album is very personal…
DK: Yeah… yeah… I wasn’t even planning to do an album. I was just making music, experimenting. The album was Damian (Lazarus)’s idea. The first track I ever made is in it…
h: Which one is that?
DK: “My Ass.” So yeah, what I was doing wasn’t intended to be an album…
h: I’ve been wondering about the lyrics to some of the tracks… “Make me Feel” for example: what is it that you want to feel?
DK: It’s more like feel, make me feel something, not anything in particular, but that intensity…
h: What about “One Chance at Happiness?”
DK: The title was actually inspired from the lyrics: “you’ve got one chance at happiness and why should I be that one chance?” It’s very cynical and at that time I was thinking “what a dark, cynical thing to say…” When someone is in your life, you usually tend to be happy about it and want to keep that person. Lyrics come around and sometimes they mean something to me. They stick to me if I relate. I think at the time I was questioning my relationship and thinking maybe I’m not that chance at your happiness and you’re not mine…
h: So you’re not the one who wrote and performed with the lyrics?
DK: No, it’s a sample. I use voice as texture. In the album I’ve used samples from old jazz songs, as well as collaborated with other artists, like Jada for the “L word.”
h: I guess I just assumed it was you since they all kind of sound pretty alike and also considering how personal the whole album feels…
DK: Yeah. Damian also tells me “you always end up finding vocals that sound like you.” But I don’t sing for now. I feel I need to get training before doing something like that. I’m thinking of taking singing lessons sometime later, maybe, not for now…
h: So you don’t sing (yet), but you are trained in classical piano. Have you thought of bringing that into your music?
I don’t like that kinda sound, combining the two… If I start composing, it’ll just be the piano and I’m starting to think about it.
h: Interesting… What three albums have had the greatest impact on you?
DK: “Welcome to Detroit” and “Ruff Draft” by Jay Dee were really influential and encouraging in terms of doing something different. He uses samples but has a unique, amazing approach. He’s dead already but he did so much in his life and has influenced so many people, changing their style and their life, changing perspective, not just mine but that of a lot of people. And number three would be Morgan Geist, “Double Night Time.” He’s part of the Metro Area duo from New York.
h: Who would you like to collaborate with next?
DK: I was recently asked to design a club in Istanbul. It’s a new project for an old building in the electronics district. It used to be a factory that made metal parts for electric supplies and it influenced the whole neighborhood, where all the stores are selling electronic supplies. Now they want to restructure the neighborhood and make it an arts and culture center so they want different artists to design the space every two months. They found out about me from an Italian promoter who told them about my music and LED designs. They also want to connect with the local community so they thought that was really cool and invited me to make an LED installation of the whole place. They want me to do the opening, which will be in September when there’s also the Istanbul Biennale so that’s my next project. They like my style and trust my judgment so they also asked me to program the music and the artists since there’s a club, an art gallery, a culture center and a cinema. It’s been my dream to do something like this – design the whole space exactly they way I picture it and then do a performance. With the LEDs I’ve created a language so it’ll be pretty special. I’ll start building it in July and in the summer I’ll probably be in Istanbul during the week and touring on weekends.
h: How do you keep up with everything?
DK: You get to a certain level when you get a serious shot at whatever you’re doing. You can’t be lazy when you have all this attention and opportunities. I enjoy it. It’s tiring but I can’t complain; it’s better than getting up at six, driving for an hour to the office and working overtime… I have a good life (laughs)…
h: And how do you divide your time between music and the LEDs?
DK: Right now I work more on commission, I get a lot of requests for installations and remixes so my schedule is coming from outside. I evaluate what’s more important and try to balance. It’s important for me to be doing both, to have both things in my life, I feel like they feed each other. I think it’s good to have different kinds of creative outlets, it puts things in perspective and helps to avoid getting lost in one thing, in one thought; switching things up – it’s like brain exercise and it opens up different channels of awareness. It keeps things interesting and refreshes your, well my mind.
Deniz Kurtel Music Watching Over Me is available on CD from Crosstown Rebels at halcyonline.com
See Deniz Kurtel at Movement Festival 2011 in Detroit.
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