Hüma Utku (tk-ge)

Unceremoniously cavalcading the space between electro-ambient and techno, Turkish composer Hüma Utku has garnered quite some attention in the European music underground, including ours. As purveyors of extra-ordinary festival experiences, we always tend our ears to exciting new sounds and emerging artists, and Hüma Utku struck us for her innovative compositional approach, which perfectly blends psychoanalysis and music. Seamlessly incorporating her deep knowledge of psychology into her passion for music, Hüma Utku writes music with a deeper purpose.

What really interests us about her multi-disciplinary approach is how it all so effortlessly comes together and how captivating it all sounds. While certainly not the first to explore the vastness of the human condition in musical terms, Hüma Utku is one of its most compelling and accomplished explorers, travelling with ease between intense soniscapes that sometimes gently, sometimes more forcibly probe the listener’s deeper subconscious, manifesting emotions, conjuring images, and inspiring feelings. Sonically, Utku is a sound artist; her lush soundscapes incorporate field recordings and analog synths into vigorous beats, in a sonic frenzy that is in equal parts soothing and destabilising.

Fluctuating between techno bangers and ambient relaxation, Utku pairs abrasiveness with gentleness, harmoniously weaving carpets of drones and noise into ritualistic rhythms. These compositions are highly suggestive of the plethora of emotions that govern our minds, even tapping into our unbridled fantasies and deepest fears. Utku aptly named her 2022 sophomore record “The Psychologist”'; a psychoanalytic exploration through frantic compositions, each suggestive of a different feeling yet all gracefully flowing together in a stream of sonic consciousness. At the festival she will perform this album in full so prepare to unlock a new inner path to your subconscious.

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