May 3, 2025 • 64 mins
Listen to Part I of Art Slut, Ann Wood's interview with classically trained, global touring, Atlanta based experimental musician, Ipek Eginli.
Ipek's completely improvised live solo and duet performances on piano and synth, are mind blowing and ground breaking.
Hear excerpts from Ipek's albums: "Field Recordings from a Black Hole" and "Clouds Carry Me to the Sky Every Morning," while she shares her journey from her classical training, to improvisational live performances, to recording.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
So we fucked it.
Hi uh everybody.
We have a treat today.
My interview is with Ipek Eginli.
She is a prominent voice in the experimental music community in Atlanta.
(00:23):
That's how I met her.
uh She was classically trained pianist born in Turkey, transplanted to New York, and weare happy to have her in Atlanta.
She performs improvisational
music globally and has released two albums of music.
Here is part one of my interview with Ipek Eginli.
(00:44):
You know, I've been just binge listening to your music and I, yes, it's wonderful.
I know you're kind of, you've just begun recording and I want to ask you about that, but Idid want to say that, you know, my exposure to you has been multiple times in live
performances, which are just
mind-blowing, extraordinary.
(01:06):
Ipek Aginle is a visual stormy performer.
I want to start off and give you a taste of her live performance with a sample.
(02:10):
Choo choo boo boo.
(02:42):
Can you kind of talk about the different process you have as far as ah performing live andrecording?
it still partially improv or is it compositional or what's the difference between the two?
Really nice place to start actually, because that uh process took a lot of thinking forme.
(03:05):
As you said that...
uh
Most of my music life is based on performing live and I really enjoy that.
There is a certain magic to it for me that I feel like a different part of me is enabledand it comes out and it feels new to me every time.
And I love sharing music with people and I'm just as mesmerized sometimes with the soundsthat's being
(03:32):
created with the modular or acoustic sounds or the people I'm playing with.
So it took a while for me to convince myself that, okay, you can make an album.
First of all, I grew up thinking that I'm not the one to make an album.
Like it was just, I always felt like it was someone else.
(03:53):
So when people started asking, so do you have an album?
And I started having the seeds and this idea was like,
Can I?
Should I?
And first I needed to get through the idea of I'm not going to make an album just becausepeople think that I should have one.
Right.
That was really important because I started feeling this urge to, okay, people want analbum because then they will consider me a serious musician.
(04:20):
Then I needed to say, okay, relax about that.
You're not making an album until you really want to make an album.
And it's kind of like framing your work almost, you know, it's like
really cementing it.
I wonder if coming from a classical background that that's why the concept of recordingwas not necessarily on your radar.
It wasn't in my radar.
(04:40):
think in the way that thinking as you know that when I perform their long form like Iwould just go play 40 minutes and then come back.
if I'm allowed to, if they give me that much time.
So, and then there's an album, it's usually, they're tracks.
So that was just the first practical part in my head, is like, I don't see myself intracks.
(05:03):
So just very simple, but that was the first block, I think.
And then the next one is the kind of perfection.
Maybe that's what you mentioned about the classical music background.
It's that it had to be perfect.
But what I'm used to when I improvise, it just...
disappears in the air every time I play and I love that.
It's just it's gone.
(05:23):
I met that music once.
It was beautiful.
I could listen to it.
I could learn from it, but it's gone.
So I needed to get around the idea of it doesn't, it's gonna stay there.
It's not going to disappear.
And then I started thinking how I should do it and I started talking to people.
Someone named Sarah Bell Reid, she's always been really helpful for me.
(05:46):
I also...
worked on electronic music with her.
This is her mentor in electronic music, Sarah Bell Reid.
you
(06:26):
And with our conversations when it came out, why can't you include improvisation into youralbum making?
Why can't that be a part of it?
And then I started getting warmer to the idea.
And then with my first album that actually, first solo album that came out 2024 June,which hasn't even been a year, I just closed myself for two days.
(06:52):
and I played and played and played.
I had created patches, my module patches, ah and I knew uh it's improvised with somepre-decided elements.
So there's this patch and there's this patch, there's this kind of preparation inside thepiano, ah or this vocals and all of that.
(07:13):
And then I would just, with that patch, with that setup, I would just record, I don'tknow, 40 minutes an hour.
So it wasn't takes, was...
you would do the long form and then kind of pull out the piece that you thought was themost communicative of what you're trying to do.
That's great.
And that made it still more natural for me.
(07:35):
It made it flow in the way that uh felt more me.
And then another beautiful realization was I thought editing was kind of...
like cheating that, you know, what it has to be natural.
recorded...
Davis would disagree with you.
What would he say?
I mean, his recording process was all about, he would record tons and tons of live andthen he would patch them together.
(08:01):
That's, he kind of created the, the mash approach to, um, recording in his later work.
without knowing that's basically what I did and I fell in love with that.
editing and I realized how much creativity you can have in that, how much artful decisionmaking in it uh and how much you learn, you grow, you start seeing things from a different
(08:28):
perspective as a producer because I also record my albums at my house so not havingsomeone else put the microphones and deal with that and I produce it all so basically I
just
had my hands in every part of the process and it really was beautiful and I loved theediting part and how that is a part of composing.
(08:53):
Yeah.
Your most recent album, I've spent the last couple days just really listening to that.
Clouds carry me to the sky every morning.
Beautiful and the concept I love, oh the continuity.
Can you talk to me about, I know it's gotten some attention recently on the BBC, right?
(09:13):
Yes, that's so interesting that they just picked it up the next day after the single cameout.
So sometimes you don't really need to do anything.
So sometimes just things happen.
But then I don't do anything for those reasons, but it makes you happy when you get somerecognition.
There's this wonderful record label.
They're kind of new.
It's called Purplish.
(09:34):
They're based in New York.
Mikey from that label reached out and said that we would like to make an album.
and it was wonderful and then I started working on it and it was different because first Ididn't have a timeline with my first album I could do it anytime but with this one I had a
timeline and I usually don't feels like I don't work well with that but then you you canfind space in you to make things work so similar to the first approach that I had I would
(10:04):
improvise but I had a little more decisions that
I made beforehand for each track.
So they were shorter and what ended up happening, I was able to really hear things in myhead before they were played this time.
Interesting.
And then I played it and I didn't play an hour this time.
I played really four minutes to six minutes and they all made it in the album.
(10:28):
Wow.
Everything I played in that, their real time.
that they happened because one of the things that's special for me is to have liveelectronics.
So I put patches in a way that I can trigger things.
So everything that's happening is happening simultaneously.
All the electronics and all the acoustics as I play, whether I'm using a foot pedal,whether I'm using all software modular or I'm all using hardware modular or the piano is
(10:56):
completely prepared, everything was set up in the way that they would happen in real time.
And then I would just play.
again, I did it in a way that I improvised all of those pieces, but I could hear in myhead how they were going to go.
And I just said, not an hour this time.
So I would just go four minutes or five minutes or three or two.
(11:16):
I think there's one that's like as short as two and a half minutes.
And that was, that was it.
Perfect.
From the new album, Clouds Carry Me to the Sky Every Morning, here is Clouds or WhateverYou Make Them Out to Be.
(13:34):
find it interesting in instrumental music, um how people treat titles, because, you know,sometimes, for me, I record and then the title is inspired by that.
Does that help work for you?
Or do you start with a concept and then use that as a jumping off point?
It's, again, it's really interesting.
(13:54):
um They used to ask Debussy, Debussy has Preludes, and they're really beautiful.
And he was an impressionistic composer.
So and
he would have these scenes and when you listen to it, whether it's uh water, whether it'sfireworks or something, you could hear that in his music.
(14:14):
But he always added the title at the very end.
There could be really a lot of interpretations.
He didn't want you to see what it was while you were playing it maybe, or he was just likeyou said that he was uh creating the music and then thinking uh what it meant to him.
So with my first album, it was exactly what you said.
(14:37):
There was no concept at all created beforehand.
And I would just play something and then it would almost remembering a person like, whatdid he pick was feeling and thinking when he, she played that what she was hearing in her
head.
And then I met with my, then what I thought as a listener, what I was hearing.
(15:01):
those two were just kind of.
constantly talking.
And then I came up with really disconnected names and I really like it.
They were almost little different ideas and pieces and it was called a field recording ina black hole.
And there were Turkish names and there was this, you know, my classical background.
(15:22):
The first one says, what was it called?
uh Remains of a Prelude and Fugue.
From her 2024 album, Field Recordings from a Black Hole, here is remains of a prelude inFugue.
(18:57):
For me, it's like that one is so meaningful because I am literally that.
I played my whole life, I played Preludes and Fugues and I am the remains of that.
What was left and what grew out of that.
So really meaningful names in the first one, but they're very disconnected.
With the second one, I can't pinpoint really when the name and concept came out, but Ithink I was feeling, I get, might.
(19:24):
easily get very obsessed with a thought, with an idea and sometimes it's really difficultto just be in that headspace.
So that was the first idea, it was just this really repetitive obsession and I justimagined myself getting out of that.
And then I remembered since I was a little kid whenever something, whenever I feel down orwhenever something really affects me I look up and I...
(19:52):
I remember, I'm reminded that I'm surrounded with clouds most of the time.
Sometimes there are no clouds, but even that just sounds like, okay, they're going to comeback.
And I remember how small I am, how incredibly crazy that we have those things above us.
we have clouds and they're just so fascinating.
(20:12):
They're gigantic.
They have completely different shapes.
They can be interpreted in so many different ways.
It's art going on every day.
There's a new exhibition that you look up.
They transform in time.
Every day!
I mean, even like different times of the day, it kind of makes me forget everything.
So, and I remember that that idea of me being freed of my obsession and obsessions by justwhat if I just went up?
(20:41):
Like what if...
uh
Not only that I'm looking at them, but that I end up meeting with them.
ah And then I started thinking literally not to just like, okay, let's create a story.
It's like, what would happen if I literally go up?
Then I thought the whole, like this whole, the time that you would be going up would be sointense that one of them would be carrying you up there.
(21:03):
I mean, it's just, it was really fun.
And then while you're being carried, what if you start touching them?
Because like...
touches a really beautiful sense.
And then what if you look out and you start, just the idea of like, what if you're thereand you have this day?
What would you do?
How would it feel like?
Let's listen to another from E.
(21:25):
Peck E.
Ginley's album, Clouds Carry Me to the Sky Every Morning called Hear My Heart Through theAcoustics of the Sky.
(22:22):
you
(23:51):
you
(27:50):
What's your thoughts about melody?
uh In my opinion, when I hear your music, seems to almost reflect nature and sounds asopposed to formal melody.
that intended or is that just what you're feeling and how you express?
(28:11):
it's very, very interesting.
um Despite of all my...
It's a mystery to me too.
to this day and despite of all of my education, quite academic, all the way, I went allthe way, that my approach to music is still very childlike and very, really in the way of
(28:41):
experimental and if a melody feels like it should continue, it does.
Sometimes it's very short and I play around with it and I don't really think about it ifI'm honest about that.
(29:01):
And there's this idea that I'm influenced by so many things of course.
My education uh is in there, my culture, I'm Turkish so that's in there.
Me being a woman is in there.
It's just me being a mom is in there.
uh So many of these things, my humor is in there, my darkness is in there.
(29:22):
So there are all these decisions being made unconsciously sometimes all coming together.
So I can't just say, things happen.
But being me for so long and being in music for so long, they kind of just happen a littlenaturally.
uh there's an idea that Wagner talks about is called endless melody.
(29:46):
um And again, I have no association with necessarily his music, but I think of thatsometimes because he treated the idea of release and tension or tension and release in a
different way.
What if you always have tension?
So what's wrong with that?
Or tension becomes not a tension, but it's just something continued because we feel liketension is like pain.
(30:12):
has to be released.
And I remember even someone saying pain is just a sensation.
It's not necessarily a negative thing.
Depending on the strength of that pain, course, just thinking of things that we thinkshould last short, like pain should end, tension should end.
What if you just get out of that idea?
(30:35):
What if there's no length that you're even considering?
So what would happen then?
If you
are able to point out and think of, if I don't, I'm thinking these things that these aresupposed to be this way.
And starting to notice these little biases that we have, and then what if we don't?
(30:59):
And then melody becomes just something yours, completely it's one of your tools.
And I find it really fascinating the way you uh
perform with silence and you extend things out.
Those pauses are so brave to me, you know, because it's at least for me, I like to have itgoing all the time, but there are times where you just let it be silent and that's
(31:28):
incredible.
I love it.
So juicy.
Exactly.
It's, um, it is
I even tell my students like when you're on stage like own it.
That's your space.
It's very important to not shorten that time.
It's really important to not wait until it's over.
(31:51):
Not worry about being too much or too quiet for people who are listening.
You're not serving anything.
You are sharing space and let them...
feel whatever they're feeling.
Let them think whatever they're thinking.
If they want to think of their dinner, that's great.
(32:13):
If they want, I can't wait for it to be over.
That's a beautiful variety of thoughts and things.
We don't know where people are coming from, where they are in that day, but when you're,again, release yourself from all of those, you really show up more of you.
And then it's not as scary to be silent.
(32:33):
oh
Right.
For just a little bit and, and like, just smile about it.
This is so nice.
It's beautiful.
And we can't help but think of the idea that silence means there's no music.
(32:54):
The music didn't start yet.
And then silence means the music ended most of the time.
that's most of genres actually.
even in art, the negative space.
Are you right?
What I just love, I love when I look at art, I do love playing the relationship betweenthat negative space and what you choose to put anywhere else.
(33:24):
But one thing that's different, I was just talking to a friend about it actually, one ofthe things Beethoven does um
Well, my friend was writing a lot of rests in his music and we're thinking, this is great.
Then who, do you know who else does that?
Beethoven.
You look at Beethoven's piano music, there are just so many rests sometimes.
There are like 16 rests and 8th rests.
And you're like, wait, do you really need that?
(33:45):
But one of the things is his music is really gestural.
And that's my gestures come in my playing as well.
That something happens and it can just linger.
And then it goes, it comes very quiet and quiet and then.
it's loud again and there are always these silent moments in between and it's so powerful.
(34:07):
Especially when you get a whole orchestra of, I don't know, 100, 150 people to just bequiet all at once.
And that's written music and I love written music.
So, and you can do that with 150 people, just be quiet all at once.
But silence is so precious in music.
(34:28):
Deepak is also a professor of music and classically trained.
Let's hear a classical performance of five bagatelles.
you
(36:02):
you
(37:22):
you
(37:42):
you
(38:03):
you
you
(38:35):
you
you
(38:58):
you
you
(39:37):
That concludes part one of my interview with Ipek Eganley.
Stay tuned for part two coming soon.
If you're in Atlanta and are intrigued by hearing more experimental music, check out NoWords ATL, Saturday, May 10th at Wild Heaven Westside.
Thanks for listening to Art Slutz Radio.
(39:58):
Hey, if you identify with the Art Slutz, explore our herstory at artslutz.net.
That's A-R-T.
sluts.net and purchase downloads of our music wherever you stream music.
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(40:20):
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(40:41):
Leave you be
It's just my music, uh
you
(53:33):
I think everything coming together a little bit...
I always made my own improvisations and my music at home.
I was a kid, I played by myself all the time.
Just random games.
I would act out the whole stories.
(53:55):
I would turn around a guitar and take a stick and for hours I would act like I'm playingthe cello.
There was this...
play and improvisation in my whole life.
And really, I have a sister, she's eight years older than I am, but both of my parentswere working there, lawyers, and I was by myself all the time, all the time.
(54:17):
And I just played and played and played and just made up stuff all the time.
But I almost felt had this two personalities that it was just very strict to do theclassical music, do this and love that.
And then there's
You only do what they're telling you and every two to the little smallest detail and thenjust go home and be whatever you want to be, create whatever you want to create and talk
(54:47):
and laugh in any way that you want.
So those two things were always going on in my life.
And but I didn't live that around other people.
It was.
Because my still to this day, like I like being by myself just to be in that in thoseworlds that I create.
(55:08):
But then, yeah, classical music turned into me doing a lot of contemporary classical,which is very close to it.
It feels like written experimental music is contemporary classical music.
So sometimes people put, see with my arms on the keys, they feel like, oh, that's big orthe newest thing.
(55:29):
I mean, I did that while I was playing contemporary music or inside the piano things andall of those or different things with my voice.
And then when I started bringing back with I think with time and age a little bit, notthat I'm that old, but I was bringing back that just combining that really playful me ah
(55:54):
with all the exposure that I had.
The Turkish music, the
and the contemporary classical music, my classical technique that I'm playing, um, and allthe things that I missed out in live and music that are just kind of combined in a way
that it feels like in the background, someone was just like, let's put this here, let'sput this thing right here.
(56:21):
And then it just became this, um, I don't want to...
describe it as something concrete, but it almost felt like, well, hello.
Some day it just opened the door and it was just all fully ready.
We're just built with the experiences of my whole life.
(56:41):
then just like, and she said like, let's do it.
And then I just, I just, then we just made a teamed up and I started doing so everythingthat I have done and I have exposed, I have been exposed.
just.
got into a person and then now I'm that.
(57:01):
And when you came to Atlanta, did you right away start moving in that direction or was itlater?
I actually was involved in contemporary classical music for several years.
I was in groups like, uh I think they're still around, Terminus Ensemble of ContemporaryEnsemble and Chamber Cartel.
(57:22):
and I started my doctorate in Athens in piano performance so I was still very involved butI was still keeping things uh back.
The playful improviser was a little bit back at home.
But those are the times that I was exposed to Morton Feldman for example, really amusician that I love, which showed me silence or uh
(57:52):
you know, being like the having just let one node ring and just listen to that and allthose things would just, it was so hard because I could play fast and I needed to show
that.
And so I learned a lot when I first moved to Atlanta, completely a new place.
(58:15):
And what year was that?
2010.
that's, I was in New York for
I five, six years for master's degree in bunch of teaching and also playing for apercussion department with contemporary music gigs.
But yeah, was here for four or five years.
(58:39):
It was just my doctorate in Athens and playing contemporary music in Atlanta and doingthings by myself.
just creating a lot by myself, but not having it out in public.
It's just so nice to talk to you and talk to another musician.
(59:01):
I love how generous you are with your process and the concepts of music.
think that's rare that typically musicians, not to generalize, but especially instrumentalmusicians, they want it to be about
The experience again, like you said, the audience, how they experience it is theirexperience.
(59:23):
But yet I love that you are able to verbalize and almost express a philosophy of music,you know, on your Instagram page and just in general, um, you know, you that's rare, I
believe to be able to explain the experience of music and performing and it's, don't know.
(59:44):
That's not really a question.
Thank you.
And, uh,
And when you give these and you share your feedback, it's so sincere to me.
It's also you are very generous with your feedback for me.
I love it's incredibly, incredibly meaningful for me.
(01:00:06):
Not that I am doing like sharing my expressions or my performances to get uh confirmationfrom people, but
I don't always hear uh the best comments either.
Really?
Because when you're out there sharing things that people are not going to be able tounderstand.
(01:00:31):
That doesn't mean that sometimes uh they have a hard time to put me in a place.
They can't understand.
Like, what are you exactly?
What do you do?
Yeah, I hear that.
I recently heard someone said that it's really hard to understand your aesthetics.
And I just went, that's great!
(01:00:53):
Thank you!
um And it's because then I...
mean, don't get me wrong, that kind of affects me.
And then I say...
um I ask, like, why did I...
I try to ask, like, why...
I try not to ask, why did I hear that?
I try to ask...
Why did that affect me?
(01:01:15):
So I think those two questions are so, so, important, the difference between.
um and, um, yeah, it is very, because if people see things in boxes and like, this is howmusic should be.
if, and I'm not going to fit in there.
(01:01:35):
of you you mean non non musicians.
I mean, because we can have bias everywhere uh and especially musicians actually or musiccritics or people who think they know music, they might see things like this is how it
needs to be and I've done it so long, I know it needs to be that and I really can't seeyou in that box.
(01:02:00):
So why is that?
And then, uh see I'm not going to fit in any boxes.
I don't fit in my own box.
I surprise myself all the time.
So my experience of the Atlanta experimental music scene is relatively new.
uh But I think.
(01:02:24):
I think it's growing, you know, I think it's, ah you know, important to spotlight.
Obviously, I think that's important.
But uh how long have you been kind of out and involved longer than I have recently?
How long has that been going on?
You know, you know, Kebby and you and iDrum and all this kind of stuff.
(01:02:45):
iDrum has always been in my, since I moved to Atlanta, iDrum has always been an incredibleinfluence for me.
I've so many concerts there, start since 2010, even earlier when I visited Atlanta.
I started playing more recently, I started during COVID.
(01:03:09):
But I did have a severe response to, I'm one of the long COVID people.
So I had to take completely nine months out of my life.
uh I was in bed for nine months and I had with the family and all of that.
(01:03:32):
So I had to take complete break to everything that I didn't know if I would ever be ableto do it.
But then,
When I was able to find the right doctors who could understand what would be happening toa female in certain situations, then it was easier for me to find the regimen.
But that also just kind of pushed me out and just say, you pick, this is the time.
(01:03:57):
got to do it.
I wake up every day.
I don't know if I'm going to be ever sick again that it's today's the day.
So sometimes when people see my drive,
In a way that I do this, it's just to me, I know the loss of it.
I know not being able to do that.
I know not being able to move a finger for a while.
(01:04:17):
And and then to me, everything is in.
I'm grateful that I could talk to you.
Every moment is grateful for me.
Yes.
Every every moment is so special.
You know, I love that Bill Taft always says when we're at a concert, he says, that's thestuff.
And it just.
(01:04:38):
everything.
It's
So we fucked it.
Hi uh everybody.
We have a treat today.
My interview is with Ipek Eginli.
She is a prominent voice in the experimental music community in Atlanta.
(00:23):
That's how I met her.
uh She was classically trained pianist born in Turkey, transplanted to New York, and weare happy to have her in Atlanta.
She performs improvisational
music globally and has released two albums of music.
Here is part one of my interview with Ipek Eginli.
(00:44):
You know, I've been just binge listening to your music and I, yes, it's wonderful.
I know you're kind of, you've just begun recording and I want to ask you about that, but Idid want to say that, you know, my exposure to you has been multiple times in live
performances, which are just
mind-blowing, extraordinary.
(01:06):
Ipek Aginle is a visual stormy performer.
I want to start off and give you a taste of her live performance with a sample.
(02:10):
Choo choo boo boo.
(02:42):
Can you kind of talk about the different process you have as far as ah performing live andrecording?
it still partially improv or is it compositional or what's the difference between the two?
Really nice place to start actually, because that uh process took a lot of thinking forme.
(03:05):
As you said that...
uh
Most of my music life is based on performing live and I really enjoy that.
There is a certain magic to it for me that I feel like a different part of me is enabledand it comes out and it feels new to me every time.
And I love sharing music with people and I'm just as mesmerized sometimes with the soundsthat's being
(03:32):
created with the modular or acoustic sounds or the people I'm playing with.
So it took a while for me to convince myself that, okay, you can make an album.
First of all, I grew up thinking that I'm not the one to make an album.
Like it was just, I always felt like it was someone else.
(03:53):
So when people started asking, so do you have an album?
And I started having the seeds and this idea was like,
Can I?
Should I?
And first I needed to get through the idea of I'm not going to make an album just becausepeople think that I should have one.
Right.
That was really important because I started feeling this urge to, okay, people want analbum because then they will consider me a serious musician.
(04:20):
Then I needed to say, okay, relax about that.
You're not making an album until you really want to make an album.
And it's kind of like framing your work almost, you know, it's like
really cementing it.
I wonder if coming from a classical background that that's why the concept of recordingwas not necessarily on your radar.
It wasn't in my radar.
(04:40):
think in the way that thinking as you know that when I perform their long form like Iwould just go play 40 minutes and then come back.
if I'm allowed to, if they give me that much time.
So, and then there's an album, it's usually, they're tracks.
So that was just the first practical part in my head, is like, I don't see myself intracks.
(05:03):
So just very simple, but that was the first block, I think.
And then the next one is the kind of perfection.
Maybe that's what you mentioned about the classical music background.
It's that it had to be perfect.
But what I'm used to when I improvise, it just...
disappears in the air every time I play and I love that.
It's just it's gone.
(05:23):
I met that music once.
It was beautiful.
I could listen to it.
I could learn from it, but it's gone.
So I needed to get around the idea of it doesn't, it's gonna stay there.
It's not going to disappear.
And then I started thinking how I should do it and I started talking to people.
Someone named Sarah Bell Reid, she's always been really helpful for me.
(05:46):
I also...
worked on electronic music with her.
This is her mentor in electronic music, Sarah Bell Reid.
you
(06:26):
And with our conversations when it came out, why can't you include improvisation into youralbum making?
Why can't that be a part of it?
And then I started getting warmer to the idea.
And then with my first album that actually, first solo album that came out 2024 June,which hasn't even been a year, I just closed myself for two days.
(06:52):
and I played and played and played.
I had created patches, my module patches, ah and I knew uh it's improvised with somepre-decided elements.
So there's this patch and there's this patch, there's this kind of preparation inside thepiano, ah or this vocals and all of that.
(07:13):
And then I would just, with that patch, with that setup, I would just record, I don'tknow, 40 minutes an hour.
So it wasn't takes, was...
you would do the long form and then kind of pull out the piece that you thought was themost communicative of what you're trying to do.
That's great.
And that made it still more natural for me.
(07:35):
It made it flow in the way that uh felt more me.
And then another beautiful realization was I thought editing was kind of...
like cheating that, you know, what it has to be natural.
recorded...
Davis would disagree with you.
What would he say?
I mean, his recording process was all about, he would record tons and tons of live andthen he would patch them together.
(08:01):
That's, he kind of created the, the mash approach to, um, recording in his later work.
without knowing that's basically what I did and I fell in love with that.
editing and I realized how much creativity you can have in that, how much artful decisionmaking in it uh and how much you learn, you grow, you start seeing things from a different
(08:28):
perspective as a producer because I also record my albums at my house so not havingsomeone else put the microphones and deal with that and I produce it all so basically I
just
had my hands in every part of the process and it really was beautiful and I loved theediting part and how that is a part of composing.
(08:53):
Yeah.
Your most recent album, I've spent the last couple days just really listening to that.
Clouds carry me to the sky every morning.
Beautiful and the concept I love, oh the continuity.
Can you talk to me about, I know it's gotten some attention recently on the BBC, right?
(09:13):
Yes, that's so interesting that they just picked it up the next day after the single cameout.
So sometimes you don't really need to do anything.
So sometimes just things happen.
But then I don't do anything for those reasons, but it makes you happy when you get somerecognition.
There's this wonderful record label.
They're kind of new.
It's called Purplish.
(09:34):
They're based in New York.
Mikey from that label reached out and said that we would like to make an album.
and it was wonderful and then I started working on it and it was different because first Ididn't have a timeline with my first album I could do it anytime but with this one I had a
timeline and I usually don't feels like I don't work well with that but then you you canfind space in you to make things work so similar to the first approach that I had I would
(10:04):
improvise but I had a little more decisions that
I made beforehand for each track.
So they were shorter and what ended up happening, I was able to really hear things in myhead before they were played this time.
Interesting.
And then I played it and I didn't play an hour this time.
I played really four minutes to six minutes and they all made it in the album.
(10:28):
Wow.
Everything I played in that, their real time.
that they happened because one of the things that's special for me is to have liveelectronics.
So I put patches in a way that I can trigger things.
So everything that's happening is happening simultaneously.
All the electronics and all the acoustics as I play, whether I'm using a foot pedal,whether I'm using all software modular or I'm all using hardware modular or the piano is
(10:56):
completely prepared, everything was set up in the way that they would happen in real time.
And then I would just play.
again, I did it in a way that I improvised all of those pieces, but I could hear in myhead how they were going to go.
And I just said, not an hour this time.
So I would just go four minutes or five minutes or three or two.
(11:16):
I think there's one that's like as short as two and a half minutes.
And that was, that was it.
Perfect.
From the new album, Clouds Carry Me to the Sky Every Morning, here is Clouds or WhateverYou Make Them Out to Be.
(13:34):
find it interesting in instrumental music, um how people treat titles, because, you know,sometimes, for me, I record and then the title is inspired by that.
Does that help work for you?
Or do you start with a concept and then use that as a jumping off point?
It's, again, it's really interesting.
(13:54):
um They used to ask Debussy, Debussy has Preludes, and they're really beautiful.
And he was an impressionistic composer.
So and
he would have these scenes and when you listen to it, whether it's uh water, whether it'sfireworks or something, you could hear that in his music.
(14:14):
But he always added the title at the very end.
There could be really a lot of interpretations.
He didn't want you to see what it was while you were playing it maybe, or he was just likeyou said that he was uh creating the music and then thinking uh what it meant to him.
So with my first album, it was exactly what you said.
(14:37):
There was no concept at all created beforehand.
And I would just play something and then it would almost remembering a person like, whatdid he pick was feeling and thinking when he, she played that what she was hearing in her
head.
And then I met with my, then what I thought as a listener, what I was hearing.
(15:01):
those two were just kind of.
constantly talking.
And then I came up with really disconnected names and I really like it.
They were almost little different ideas and pieces and it was called a field recording ina black hole.
And there were Turkish names and there was this, you know, my classical background.
(15:22):
The first one says, what was it called?
uh Remains of a Prelude and Fugue.
From her 2024 album, Field Recordings from a Black Hole, here is remains of a prelude inFugue.
(18:57):
For me, it's like that one is so meaningful because I am literally that.
I played my whole life, I played Preludes and Fugues and I am the remains of that.
What was left and what grew out of that.
So really meaningful names in the first one, but they're very disconnected.
With the second one, I can't pinpoint really when the name and concept came out, but Ithink I was feeling, I get, might.
(19:24):
easily get very obsessed with a thought, with an idea and sometimes it's really difficultto just be in that headspace.
So that was the first idea, it was just this really repetitive obsession and I justimagined myself getting out of that.
And then I remembered since I was a little kid whenever something, whenever I feel down orwhenever something really affects me I look up and I...
(19:52):
I remember, I'm reminded that I'm surrounded with clouds most of the time.
Sometimes there are no clouds, but even that just sounds like, okay, they're going to comeback.
And I remember how small I am, how incredibly crazy that we have those things above us.
we have clouds and they're just so fascinating.
(20:12):
They're gigantic.
They have completely different shapes.
They can be interpreted in so many different ways.
It's art going on every day.
There's a new exhibition that you look up.
They transform in time.
Every day!
I mean, even like different times of the day, it kind of makes me forget everything.
So, and I remember that that idea of me being freed of my obsession and obsessions by justwhat if I just went up?
(20:41):
Like what if...
uh
Not only that I'm looking at them, but that I end up meeting with them.
ah And then I started thinking literally not to just like, okay, let's create a story.
It's like, what would happen if I literally go up?
Then I thought the whole, like this whole, the time that you would be going up would be sointense that one of them would be carrying you up there.
(21:03):
I mean, it's just, it was really fun.
And then while you're being carried, what if you start touching them?
Because like...
touches a really beautiful sense.
And then what if you look out and you start, just the idea of like, what if you're thereand you have this day?
What would you do?
How would it feel like?
Let's listen to another from E.
(21:25):
Peck E.
Ginley's album, Clouds Carry Me to the Sky Every Morning called Hear My Heart Through theAcoustics of the Sky.
(22:22):
you
(23:51):
you
(27:50):
What's your thoughts about melody?
uh In my opinion, when I hear your music, seems to almost reflect nature and sounds asopposed to formal melody.
that intended or is that just what you're feeling and how you express?
(28:11):
it's very, very interesting.
um Despite of all my...
It's a mystery to me too.
to this day and despite of all of my education, quite academic, all the way, I went allthe way, that my approach to music is still very childlike and very, really in the way of
(28:41):
experimental and if a melody feels like it should continue, it does.
Sometimes it's very short and I play around with it and I don't really think about it ifI'm honest about that.
(29:01):
And there's this idea that I'm influenced by so many things of course.
My education uh is in there, my culture, I'm Turkish so that's in there.
Me being a woman is in there.
It's just me being a mom is in there.
uh So many of these things, my humor is in there, my darkness is in there.
(29:22):
So there are all these decisions being made unconsciously sometimes all coming together.
So I can't just say, things happen.
But being me for so long and being in music for so long, they kind of just happen a littlenaturally.
uh there's an idea that Wagner talks about is called endless melody.
(29:46):
um And again, I have no association with necessarily his music, but I think of thatsometimes because he treated the idea of release and tension or tension and release in a
different way.
What if you always have tension?
So what's wrong with that?
Or tension becomes not a tension, but it's just something continued because we feel liketension is like pain.
(30:12):
has to be released.
And I remember even someone saying pain is just a sensation.
It's not necessarily a negative thing.
Depending on the strength of that pain, course, just thinking of things that we thinkshould last short, like pain should end, tension should end.
What if you just get out of that idea?
(30:35):
What if there's no length that you're even considering?
So what would happen then?
If you
are able to point out and think of, if I don't, I'm thinking these things that these aresupposed to be this way.
And starting to notice these little biases that we have, and then what if we don't?
(30:59):
And then melody becomes just something yours, completely it's one of your tools.
And I find it really fascinating the way you uh
perform with silence and you extend things out.
Those pauses are so brave to me, you know, because it's at least for me, I like to have itgoing all the time, but there are times where you just let it be silent and that's
(31:28):
incredible.
I love it.
So juicy.
Exactly.
It's, um, it is
I even tell my students like when you're on stage like own it.
That's your space.
It's very important to not shorten that time.
It's really important to not wait until it's over.
(31:51):
Not worry about being too much or too quiet for people who are listening.
You're not serving anything.
You are sharing space and let them...
feel whatever they're feeling.
Let them think whatever they're thinking.
If they want to think of their dinner, that's great.
(32:13):
If they want, I can't wait for it to be over.
That's a beautiful variety of thoughts and things.
We don't know where people are coming from, where they are in that day, but when you're,again, release yourself from all of those, you really show up more of you.
And then it's not as scary to be silent.
(32:33):
oh
Right.
For just a little bit and, and like, just smile about it.
This is so nice.
It's beautiful.
And we can't help but think of the idea that silence means there's no music.
(32:54):
The music didn't start yet.
And then silence means the music ended most of the time.
that's most of genres actually.
even in art, the negative space.
Are you right?
What I just love, I love when I look at art, I do love playing the relationship betweenthat negative space and what you choose to put anywhere else.
(33:24):
But one thing that's different, I was just talking to a friend about it actually, one ofthe things Beethoven does um
Well, my friend was writing a lot of rests in his music and we're thinking, this is great.
Then who, do you know who else does that?
Beethoven.
You look at Beethoven's piano music, there are just so many rests sometimes.
There are like 16 rests and 8th rests.
And you're like, wait, do you really need that?
(33:45):
But one of the things is his music is really gestural.
And that's my gestures come in my playing as well.
That something happens and it can just linger.
And then it goes, it comes very quiet and quiet and then.
it's loud again and there are always these silent moments in between and it's so powerful.
(34:07):
Especially when you get a whole orchestra of, I don't know, 100, 150 people to just bequiet all at once.
And that's written music and I love written music.
So, and you can do that with 150 people, just be quiet all at once.
But silence is so precious in music.
(34:28):
Deepak is also a professor of music and classically trained.
Let's hear a classical performance of five bagatelles.
you
(36:02):
you
(37:22):
you
(37:42):
you
(38:03):
you
you
(38:35):
you
you
(38:58):
you
you
(39:37):
That concludes part one of my interview with Ipek Eganley.
Stay tuned for part two coming soon.
If you're in Atlanta and are intrigued by hearing more experimental music, check out NoWords ATL, Saturday, May 10th at Wild Heaven Westside.
Thanks for listening to Art Slutz Radio.
(39:58):
Hey, if you identify with the Art Slutz, explore our herstory at artslutz.net.
That's A-R-T.
sluts.net and purchase downloads of our music wherever you stream music.
All contributions and purchases will go to support Planned Parenthood.
(40:20):
Currently, 21 states have limited access to women's health care, including abortion, and15 of those have a total ban.
Talking about your abortion experience, voting and donating to support abortion rights.
will make a difference.
(40:41):
Leave you be
It's just my music, uh
you
(53:33):
I think everything coming together a little bit...
I always made my own improvisations and my music at home.
I was a kid, I played by myself all the time.
Just random games.
I would act out the whole stories.
(53:55):
I would turn around a guitar and take a stick and for hours I would act like I'm playingthe cello.
There was this...
play and improvisation in my whole life.
And really, I have a sister, she's eight years older than I am, but both of my parentswere working there, lawyers, and I was by myself all the time, all the time.
(54:17):
And I just played and played and played and just made up stuff all the time.
But I almost felt had this two personalities that it was just very strict to do theclassical music, do this and love that.
And then there's
You only do what they're telling you and every two to the little smallest detail and thenjust go home and be whatever you want to be, create whatever you want to create and talk
(54:47):
and laugh in any way that you want.
So those two things were always going on in my life.
And but I didn't live that around other people.
It was.
Because my still to this day, like I like being by myself just to be in that in thoseworlds that I create.
(55:08):
But then, yeah, classical music turned into me doing a lot of contemporary classical,which is very close to it.
It feels like written experimental music is contemporary classical music.
So sometimes people put, see with my arms on the keys, they feel like, oh, that's big orthe newest thing.
(55:29):
I mean, I did that while I was playing contemporary music or inside the piano things andall of those or different things with my voice.
And then when I started bringing back with I think with time and age a little bit, notthat I'm that old, but I was bringing back that just combining that really playful me ah
(55:54):
with all the exposure that I had.
The Turkish music, the
and the contemporary classical music, my classical technique that I'm playing, um, and allthe things that I missed out in live and music that are just kind of combined in a way
that it feels like in the background, someone was just like, let's put this here, let'sput this thing right here.
(56:21):
And then it just became this, um, I don't want to...
describe it as something concrete, but it almost felt like, well, hello.
Some day it just opened the door and it was just all fully ready.
We're just built with the experiences of my whole life.
(56:41):
then just like, and she said like, let's do it.
And then I just, I just, then we just made a teamed up and I started doing so everythingthat I have done and I have exposed, I have been exposed.
just.
got into a person and then now I'm that.
(57:01):
And when you came to Atlanta, did you right away start moving in that direction or was itlater?
I actually was involved in contemporary classical music for several years.
I was in groups like, uh I think they're still around, Terminus Ensemble of ContemporaryEnsemble and Chamber Cartel.
(57:22):
and I started my doctorate in Athens in piano performance so I was still very involved butI was still keeping things uh back.
The playful improviser was a little bit back at home.
But those are the times that I was exposed to Morton Feldman for example, really amusician that I love, which showed me silence or uh
(57:52):
you know, being like the having just let one node ring and just listen to that and allthose things would just, it was so hard because I could play fast and I needed to show
that.
And so I learned a lot when I first moved to Atlanta, completely a new place.
(58:15):
And what year was that?
2010.
that's, I was in New York for
I five, six years for master's degree in bunch of teaching and also playing for apercussion department with contemporary music gigs.
But yeah, was here for four or five years.
(58:39):
It was just my doctorate in Athens and playing contemporary music in Atlanta and doingthings by myself.
just creating a lot by myself, but not having it out in public.
It's just so nice to talk to you and talk to another musician.
(59:01):
I love how generous you are with your process and the concepts of music.
think that's rare that typically musicians, not to generalize, but especially instrumentalmusicians, they want it to be about
The experience again, like you said, the audience, how they experience it is theirexperience.
(59:23):
But yet I love that you are able to verbalize and almost express a philosophy of music,you know, on your Instagram page and just in general, um, you know, you that's rare, I
believe to be able to explain the experience of music and performing and it's, don't know.
(59:44):
That's not really a question.
Thank you.
And, uh,
And when you give these and you share your feedback, it's so sincere to me.
It's also you are very generous with your feedback for me.
I love it's incredibly, incredibly meaningful for me.
(01:00:06):
Not that I am doing like sharing my expressions or my performances to get uh confirmationfrom people, but
I don't always hear uh the best comments either.
Really?
Because when you're out there sharing things that people are not going to be able tounderstand.
(01:00:31):
That doesn't mean that sometimes uh they have a hard time to put me in a place.
They can't understand.
Like, what are you exactly?
What do you do?
Yeah, I hear that.
I recently heard someone said that it's really hard to understand your aesthetics.
And I just went, that's great!
(01:00:53):
Thank you!
um And it's because then I...
mean, don't get me wrong, that kind of affects me.
And then I say...
um I ask, like, why did I...
I try to ask, like, why...
I try not to ask, why did I hear that?
I try to ask...
Why did that affect me?
(01:01:15):
So I think those two questions are so, so, important, the difference between.
um and, um, yeah, it is very, because if people see things in boxes and like, this is howmusic should be.
if, and I'm not going to fit in there.
(01:01:35):
of you you mean non non musicians.
I mean, because we can have bias everywhere uh and especially musicians actually or musiccritics or people who think they know music, they might see things like this is how it
needs to be and I've done it so long, I know it needs to be that and I really can't seeyou in that box.
(01:02:00):
So why is that?
And then, uh see I'm not going to fit in any boxes.
I don't fit in my own box.
I surprise myself all the time.
So my experience of the Atlanta experimental music scene is relatively new.
uh But I think.
(01:02:24):
I think it's growing, you know, I think it's, ah you know, important to spotlight.
Obviously, I think that's important.
But uh how long have you been kind of out and involved longer than I have recently?
How long has that been going on?
You know, you know, Kebby and you and iDrum and all this kind of stuff.
(01:02:45):
iDrum has always been in my, since I moved to Atlanta, iDrum has always been an incredibleinfluence for me.
I've so many concerts there, start since 2010, even earlier when I visited Atlanta.
I started playing more recently, I started during COVID.
(01:03:09):
But I did have a severe response to, I'm one of the long COVID people.
So I had to take completely nine months out of my life.
uh I was in bed for nine months and I had with the family and all of that.
(01:03:32):
So I had to take complete break to everything that I didn't know if I would ever be ableto do it.
But then,
When I was able to find the right doctors who could understand what would be happening toa female in certain situations, then it was easier for me to find the regimen.
But that also just kind of pushed me out and just say, you pick, this is the time.
(01:03:57):
got to do it.
I wake up every day.
I don't know if I'm going to be ever sick again that it's today's the day.
So sometimes when people see my drive,
In a way that I do this, it's just to me, I know the loss of it.
I know not being able to do that.
I know not being able to move a finger for a while.
(01:04:17):
And and then to me, everything is in.
I'm grateful that I could talk to you.
Every moment is grateful for me.
Yes.
Every every moment is so special.
You know, I love that Bill Taft always says when we're at a concert, he says, that's thestuff.
And it just.
(01:04:38):
everything.
It's
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