Release Notes
Label: Injazero
Released: May 2nd, 2025
Mastered By: Joshua Eustis
Artwork By: Ozge Cone
Some things could be attributed to chance, while others result from human [in]action. Reality has a way of unfolding, but we also can shape it, if we only try. We can create distortion fields in this world, both negative and positive. I prefer to do it with music [and also with these words], feeling the pressure levels of air displaced through this space, seeing my actions evolve our community. The key is to channel it into the right things. The key is to mould this reality by lowering suffering and not creating more insanity spun out by imaginary thoughts. Turkish electronic musician Siné Buyuka expresses her frustration, aggrievement and grief for the loss and devastation of the 2022 Turkiye-Syria earthquake on her latest album, Farewell. Producing under her Sinemis moniker, the music captures the visceral emotional maelstrom through sound shaped by organic pads, pulsating bass, and prickly stabs from semi-modular synths. Buyuka’s music is “at once a love letter to the beautiful land that she once called home and a scathing indictment of the governing powers that have so harmed its own people, culture, and freedom.” The tension of this cinematic expression is held together by beatless rhythm and sweeping noise that would appeal to fans of Caterina Barbieri, Alessandro Cortini and Helene Vogelsinger.
The opening track to the Farewell album was produced right after the Turkiye-Syria earthquakes of Feb 6th, 2023 that killed over 55,000 people and devastated entire cities. It was a very difficult time watching such a tragedy unfold from afar and particularly frustrating to know that such blatant loss of life was the result of corruption, greed and nepotism, when it could be preventable. Entire city blocks became mass graves as a result of not being up to code. Construction amnesties were granted up to 75,000 buildings in the earthquake zone alone under the current government’s rule. To top that off, the government’s response to the disaster was a disaster in itself, malicious at worst and incompetent at best. It was ordinary citizens helping people with their bare hands; digging into the rubble to save their relatives and neighbours. The public was told that “It was fate, it was God’s will,” while authorities shamelessly divested any accountability. “It’s not fate, it’s you” was named in response to this inexcusable justification by Turkey’s premiership, while we kept oscillating between shock, outrage, anger, sorrow and grief. My frustration was channelled into my music via ambient soundscapes, noise and subtle ney layers hosting semi-modular analogue synth lines.
— Siné Buyuka
Siné Buyuka is also the founder and curator of an Istanbul and London-based boutique label, Injazero Records, which put out a benefit compilation two years ago (March 2023) titled re-LEAF with all profits donated to the Ahbap NGO in Turkiye for their wide-range relief operation in an ethnically diverse area home to millions of immigrants and Syrian refugees. This track is out today, and the full album will be released on May 2nd, 2025, via Injazero, available on Bandcamp.
