Deniz Cuylan has shared No Such Thing, a gleaming electro-acoustic track made with Dutch multi-instrumentalist Felbm, and announced a new album, For Luca, out September 18th via Hush Hush Records, the Seattle label run by KEXP’s Alex Ruder. The album is a heartfelt tribute to Cuylan’s dog Luca, who was five when bone cancer struck, and the Turkish-born composer built it as a shared act of remembrance rather than a private one. “Dealing with grief is much easier when it’s shared with others, so I reached out to my musician friends,” he says. Those friends include Peni Candra Rini, Makoto Kubota of Les Rallizes Dénudés, Thor Harris, Casper Clausen of Efterklang, Sarah La Puerta and Felbm, singing in languages from around the world.
The album’s globally informed mix of classical, folk and electronic music traces back to Luca himself. When Cuylan adopted him, he was living in Los Angeles, writing scores for films and Netflix series; the dog pulled him back toward acoustic guitar, the instrument he’d set aside for twenty years in favour of synthesizers and electronics. Luca was in the studio for Cuylan’s 2021 solo debut No Such Thing As Free Will, and KLOF covered his follow-up, 2022’s Rings of Juniper.
No Such Thing is a meditation on calm, drawn from quiet moments Cuylan and Luca shared. “Felbm makes calming, ambient recordings that I often listened to with Luca,” he explains. The video, directed by Ade Hanft, plays above. For all its sadness, Cuylan calls the album a celebration — of a bond made brighter by how brief it was.
Pre-Order For Luca – https://hushhushrecords.bandcamp.com/album/for-luca
The album artwork was created by Gaia Alari.
