Erdem Helvacioglu - Wounded Breath [Aucourant Records - 2009]This is a slightly on the bland side album from Erdem Helvacioglu. A young Turkish musician who works in many fields of the arts from films to dance to music and his work goes from the more experimental, such as here, to the more mainstream, such as music for the World Soccer Championships. What “Wounded Breath” is, is an album of 5 electroacoustic tracks that whilst played, recorded, produced and arranged very well seem to lack something. The execution of them is fine but it perhaps lacks that little spark that makes them different, makes them stand out from the crowd rather than just become yet another of those albums that ends up as a sort of background to everyday activities.
The basic layout of the tracks is ambient with random occasional sounds appearing and recurring as little themes that hold the pieces together. Interspersed with these are some more musical sounds such as synths and voice (not used as a delivery for vocals but as an atmosphere). It’s layered together well and has sounds that wouldn’t be out of place on Coil around the time of Worship the Glitch or Current 93 around the time of In Menstrual Night. In fact if you could blend those two things together you’d be close to where this record seems to be aiming for. Though unfortunately this album doesn’t end up being nearly as compelling as either of those two.
This is a grower of an album and whilst I can’t see myself playing it very often it does have moments that are rather good and if Erdem can develop his style from here and maybe give it a little more of his personality rather than using the tried and tested blueprint for this genre that everybody else does then he may come up with something heading towards originality.    David Bourgoin
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