Today I will proudly present you with one of the most unique voices and songwriters of the Turkish music scene: Ezgi Altıner.
I prefer to call her a “ghost singer” because she is not a frontwoman kind of visible character, and second, she is not producing or at least sharing her music regularly. You may hear a song or see a video of her performance, but then you can experience 3-4 years of silence before another surprise comes.
Maybe that mystery, or let’s call it not following up on the trends, is making her that unique.
Let’s start with her latest piece, “At” (“Horse”). Then I’ll tell her story, not in chronological order but as I wish to.
“At” is written, composed, and sung by Ezgi. It is recorded, arranged, and mixed by Cihan Mürtezaoğlu, who also played the guitar. You can see the shadow of this friendship throughout Ezgi’s musical journey, from the starting point. You will also hear a very cool snare drum played by Zafer Tunç Resuloğlu, and the song is mastered by Deniz Demirtaş Demirci. Özlem İlgezdi recorded the video.
You will hear the loopy, gloomy, and maybe psychedelic mood of the song when you listen to it, very much like all pieces of Ezgi, totally away from cliches. Of course, surrounded by extremely poetic lyrics. “At” is, for now, her only piece in 2022. We have one more from 2020 and three more from 2019 on Spotify and YouTube.
When we go back to the beginning of the 2010s, we see a video series named Walking Sounds, which is one of the first music performance video series I know in Türkiye. That’s the first point that we met Ezgi,
I remember she sang a song named “Ağıt” (lament) with a band named Künt, consisting of rock stars of today’s Turkish alternative scene. In the video, we see younger versions of Can Güngör, Efe Demiral, Canberk Ünsal, and again Cihan Mürtezaoğlu besides Ezgi.
Then when we move forward to 2014, we see another music performance series named Pürtelaş 3+1, in which I also took place in the production team. In the sixth episode, we hosted Sen Yağmur Dök, a duo of Ezgi Altıner and Cihan Mürtezoğlu, where we recorded and released the first four videos of Ezgi Altıner singing her own songs.
To sum up, I’ve been following Ezgi’s melodies since 2010, but especially after 2014, when I witnessed her songs and performances firsthand by myself at the recordings of Pürtelaş 3+1. Hoping to hear more from her, I want to share her extraordinary musical journey and invite you to this hopeful waiting ritual.
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