Büşra Kayıkçı
Places
Büşra Kayıkçı (piano)
Warner Classics 5419776288 44:38 mins
Büşra Kayıkçı channels Goethe’s assertion that ‘music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music’: having trained as an interior architect, the Turkish pianist-composer says that she approaches a score in the same way as a building. In Places, some of the rooms have an Escher-like quality; many of the solo piano pieces undulate without an obvious destination. Unrooted, as the title suggests, evokes a circling journey, with repeated rippling piano motifs and a subtle walking bass. Into the Woods shimmers, the layered melodies and looping electronic effects simple but neatly deployed. Some of the locations on the album, Kayıkçı’s second solo release following on from Eskizler (2019), are less figurative. ...Nowhere has a plaintive feel, its harmonic palette brings a Middle Eastern flavour to the now-ubiquitous pop-minimalist piano genre.
Like previous pianist-composers working in what is sometimes called ‘post-classical’ music, Kayıkçı uses well-trodden prepared piano techniques to adapt the keyboard’s timbre. The piano hammers are padded to create gently abstract tones (gaining a cult following through Nils Frahm’s 2011 album Felt) and strategic mic placement captures sounds that would usually be undesirable on a solo piano recording – creaks, squeaks and pedal displacement are all part of the charm (Quba; L’inno). This Cageian approach runs in the same vein as Stephan Moccio (Tales of Solace, 2020), a trend that was consolidated during lockdowns when artists were forced to self-record. There’s not much to distinguish Kayıkçı from Einaudi, Joep Beving, Yiruma et al – except one thing: Places is released via Warner Classics rather than a Universal imprint, suggesting the label is hoping for a bite of the meditative-piano apple. Claire Jackson