(2022) Deniz Cuylan - Rings of Juniper    


Review:
Defined as Mediterranean Minimalism, Deniz Cuylan’s Rings of Juniper journeys to spaces of calm where he performs flights of fancy using guitars, clarinet and piano as colours to create musical sketches of beauty. Things are not quite as minimal as they may initially appear as he lays out notes of grace and grandeur. Setting off with Rings of Juniper, a guitar plays a downward series of notes as the clarinet offers subtle shadings creating a sound much larger than the instruments played with the piano adding to the rapturous display. One can almost hear the sounds of the Mediterranean animals dancing through the soundscape. With ‘The Hidden Language of Four’, the song moves from bass notes of the guitar to the thinner strings and then on to clarinet, strings and piano, all emphasizing other aspects of the four-beat progression. It’s fascinating to hear all the different points of emphasis going on at the same time. The sense of repetition and movement going on simultaneously is extraordinary. There’s a push and pull to the water of Swimmers. Rather than an ocean of sound, what is revealed is much simpler, moving from one guitar representing one swimmer with others entering and leaving. The piano casts gentle waves on the water, adding to the breadth and depth of the piece. Cuylan’s mastery of his instruments is heightened by his ability to create contexts that provide a sense of feel to these songs. Big Blue Behavior nods to a world we can sometimes feel trapped in, yet the gentleness of the sound also illustrates how, despite the somewhat solemn nature of the piece, nothing is without hope. The landscape of Sintra comes into play in Clouds Over Sintra. Cuylan was fascinated watching the clouds blown away by the ocean and then hitting the mainland. A complex sense of polyrhythms emerges as the guitars come in and out in different gentle arrays. Using different melodies in 3, 5 and 7 create a language all their own. Mastering the guitar in so many different forms, Deniz Cuylan has created a meditative Mediterranean travelogue. Rings of Juniper offers a wealth of possibilities to be discovered. Despite using a minimal amount of instruments, Cuylan finds a way to shape a world of sound that will not soon be forgotten.


   


Track List:
01 - Rings of Juniper
02 - Hidden Language of Four
03 - Swimmers
04 - Big Blue Behavior
05 - Inner Chamber
06 - Other Minds
07 - Clouds Over Sintra
08 - As Above So Below


Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, ambient
Country: USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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