The debut for Turkish duo Sanr. Kesif is a truly expansive album inspired by word play in Turkish as well as themes of loss and renewal. It is centred on extended use of the traditional Cura instrument, alongside source material ranging from broken records, recordings of gas heaters, dishwashers and heating pipes to experimentations with demijohns and marbles. This restlessly experimental album introduces us to a singular sound world.

Sanr are Altuğ Kaptan and Devrim Kınlı. The pair are based in İzmir, Turkey.

Text by Kate Carr (Flaming Pines)

"With track titles meaning things like mole and corridor, it's easy to see that they're searching for something. The album is quite abstract, long stretches of soft sound and strange noises leaving me breathless, afraid of impinging on this sonic world. The backbone is the cura, a stringed instrument, although broken records, recordings of gas heaters, dishwashers and heating pipes are all used as well. It's so brilliantly captured that it's hard to imagine these sounds came from such quotidian objects."
by Bandcloud at bandcloud.org/bc269



"It’s hard to fathom that this is a debut from a Turkish duo, Sanr have an incredibly seasoned sensibility, “inspired by word play as well as themes of loss and renewal.” To create this record they are wielding a Cura (a traditional Turkish instrument, from where they took their name) as well as a host of common (odd) items and utilities. On Dehliz they scrape and tickle the ear with a low yet pitchy sound along with metallic jangling, dragging – becoming more about the performative actions in space than anything else.

As Kesif moves forward the variables start to melange together in what, not at first, begins to gel into something of a low-grade drone, humming in clangor and echo. Something you may not hear from the perspective of Semih Tokkuzun’s lovely aerial cover shot that depicts the ellipse of the land from above, shapely like a void, a giant eye. The title track is incredibly subtle, creaking open with ambiguous presence. The impression of an enormous blanket wafting over the region comes to mind, shadows of unknown circumstance. It’s a gorgeous, all-encompassing ambient drone that oscillates voluminously and takes hold.

Elsewhere on the digital release there are cowering dark corners, muffled veneer, something far off the grid. Altuğ Kaptan and Devrim Kınlı deem most of the latter half here fairly close to their chests, as the previously exuberant outpouring penetrates inwardly. Smaller, slower actions for at its center, becoming quite an intimate listen, not unlike uncovering a child’s musicbox. A stillness dominates on Sircadil only disturbed by the most nominal chime-like accents. You can hear a pin drop until about half-way when a harmonic drone begins to sweep through, and each sound rises, glassy and oblique as they are. This all leads up to the stridulous, mining-like constriction of the closer, Tremor, which goes out in a crisp plume of dust."

by TJ Norris (Toneshift) toneshift.wordpress.com/2019/11/05/kesif-by-sanr/