Berk Yagli
(born 1999) is a Cypriot guitarist, composer, and producer. His mission with his music has been to talk about social, political, and philosophical matters interestingly to invite the listeners into reflecting on the topics. He is working on hybridisation between electroacoustic music and metal as part of his PhD at the University of the Arts London. He has been active in the UK since 2017. His works have been presented internationally. He is regularly invited to compose his music in studios throughout the world. He received numerous awards for his compositions in competitions around the world.
http://www.berkyagli.me/portfolio/
CMS invited lecture #49
Hybridity in Music: Current Literature, Strategies, Methods, and the Hybridisation of Electroacoustic Music and Metal
The talk/presentation will focus on musical hybridity and critical methods developed for the hybridization of electroacoustic and metal music (as part of the presenter's Ph.D. research). These methods are formed to build a blueprint for hybrid composers (ultimately not only specific to metal and electroacoustic but for other genres as well that combines spectromorphological focused music with harmony and rhythm-based music since this type of hybridity requires a unique set of challenges and complexities). As technology increases at a rapid rate and postmodern conditions only grow stronger as lines get blurry, hybridity has been more than a prominent musical power to embrace this current condition and reflect through what is considered music and art in the 21st century.
CMS Gesprächskonzert #25
Acousmatic Metal: Exploring the Hybridisation of Electroacoustic and Metal
Acousmatic Metal: Exploring the Hybridisation of Electroacoustic and Metal is a multichannel concert showcasing the work of Berk Yagli, who is a composer and researcher. Through 6 pieces, we shall dive through Berk's practice - mainly on musical hybridity; specifically on hybridity between electroacoustic and metal. The performance crafts a unique listening experience, unfolding an emerging creative process with each piece aimed at different intersections between the two genres.
Technology increases at a rapid rate and postmodern conditions only grow stronger as lines get blurry. Consequently, hybridity has been more than a prominent musical power to embrace this current condition and reflect through what is considered music and art in the 21st century (and challenge the notions of high art and low art).
Progamm
1- Zen of Aggression
2- Grains of Temporality
3- Hypnagogic Hallucination Machinery
4- The Cycle of Life and Decay
5- Itsumade?
6- Transhuman
7- Ideological Distortion
Programme Notes
Ideological Distortion (2021)
Ideological Distortion is a piece which explores the dark side of today's media, dilution of ideologies, and constant bombardment of confusion. It invites the listener into reflecting on the issues and feel the horror and hate that is constantly imposed on society whether we individuals are lucid about it or not.
Zen of Aggression (2022)
In a world where saturation becomes the norm, little to no values left without being commoditized, the environmental damage of the actions has taken for granted, and opinions start to get one dimensional, the people living in the society evolve to become numb and alienated from overstimulation and getting out of touch with the roots of the World. Zen of Aggression deals with these emerging conditions and topics to produce an electroacoustic/metal hybrid piece as aggressively as possible. The composer intends to present this new way of living without compromising on the details of chaos.
Grains of Temporality (2022)
Grains of Temporality explores the ironic struggle of power, justice, and equality dynamics that have long haunted many civilizations and provides an abstract journey through our history and future of civilizations via the grains of time. This piece aims to hybridise metal and electroacoustic music through ideas of eclecticism, and polystylism.
Hypnagogic Hallucination Machinery (2023)
Hypnagogic Hallucination Machinery is about the 21st-century condition. Living in a hyper-consumer-based world, where everyone happily becomes a commodity to take part in society, the concepts of individuality, freedom, privacy, and humanity once again become crucial to be questioned and discussed. The sea of endless escapism, simultaneously fractured and monotonous people and ideas, we are now a part of the systematic hallucination machine more than ever. This piece aims to reflect these topics in an auditory way.
The Cycle of Life and Decay (2023)
The Cycle of Life and Decay is about the condition that surrounds all living things (and arguably our universe): All things are bound to a never-ending cycle of life, growth, and decay. Unlike our general human perception (which generates illusions that the life we surround and create for ourselves is/will be stable), nothing is permanent, and everything is bound to change. Life and death, suffering and tranquillity, and ever changing states of consciousness are what is stable. This continuous process of creation, growth, and destruction of matter works as a solution for the problem of heat death through entropy; allowing a universe that is eternal, without a beginning or ending. In Buddhist belief, Samsara is the endless cycle of life, death, and suffering (which all living souls are part of and will be part of until they manage to free themselves from it). This piece attempts to find a parallel between these two notions (the cycle bounding living things, and the cycle that considers our universe) to create a sonic farewell to 'Şampiyon Melekler' (two Cypriot volleyball teams (high school girls-boys) that went to Turkey in February 2023 to compete in the finals and lost their lives due to their hotel collapsing because of the 7.8 Earthquake) wishing that they found liberation from this cycle in which they are no longer experiencing suffering but only tranquillity.
Transhuman (2021)
As technology improves at a rapid rate, promising a change in the way of living and even the essence of what is human (for the human species to be able to catch up with artificial intelligence), it is now more than necessary to ask if as a species are we ready for a radical and possibly an irreversible jump?
The Transhuman trilogy, consisting of three electroacoustic metal hybrid pieces, focuses on finding certain methods to create balanced hybrid pieces with the aesthetic of dystopian futurism. The main aim behind this form of hybridity is to create hybrid pieces which have aggressiveness, heaviness, and darkness of metal mixed with endless timbral possibilities, spectromorphological thinking, and abstractness of electroacoustic music.
‘Transhuman’ being the first of the trilogy of pieces, this piece is all about experiencing the singularity process when every single consciousness in the world is mixed with the artificial consciousness. The line gets blurred and everything becomes abstract. After this point, there is no turning back and the world we know is no longer the same.
Itsumade? (2025)
Itsumade is a piece that aims to reflect an ongoing condition, of being in a state of endless purgatory, that is, both related to society and the individual—a never-ending cycle of war, destruction, death, and scattering; all emerging from the brutal remainings of outdated modes of world structures, that are acting as nothing but a venom-infusing on every attempt made to get us out of the purgatory. Recorded and composed mostly in Japan during a residency as a composer, the piece is largely influenced by the Shinto concept of Itsumade. Itsumade is a Yōkai monster, an eerie reptilian bird known for crying "itsumade itsumade" (until when? Until when?) almost every night around the fall of 1334 (in the Kenmu years) when an epidemic illness was causing many deaths. Drawing from the story of itsumade and the concept of being in a state of spiritual and material purgatory, this piece aims to intersect these two points together asking until when? Until when can we take a radical step forward to change the process? The piece is hugely composed of deconstructions of the written and produced metal pieces by me, 7 in total, one of which was formed in Itoshima (Japan) during my stay in 2023. During my stay, out of complete surprise, I had a chance to collaborate with the Japanese singer Kaori Takeda on a progressive metal piece I worked on with inspirations from Japanese Rock/Metal. Kaori helped me write lyrics and she sang brilliantly, delivering her raw and unique energy.
