My Heart Of Noise is a collaborative album created by UK-based Turkish musician Elif Yalvaç for the Icelandic label Möller Records. It builds on the music and travels that led to her creating Mountains Become Stepping Stones (NNA Tapes, 2020) with the collaborative composition approach of Green Drift (Expert Sleepers, 2022).
Why ‘My Heart Of Noise’? Elif: “I hear music everywhere: in natural sounds, in electronic sounds, mechanical sounds. I want to capture and shape it so others can hear what I hear and experience what I feel. I’ve spent the last years trying to make sense of a noisy world. My heart is also noisy, but slowly I learn to listen to it better. And in this new music, I found that I became its ‘heart of noise’, through meeting and inviting collaborators from across the Nordic countries, bringing their works together coherently, and finding an emotional centre.”
My Heart of Noise “began with a collection of studio and concert recordings from my travels north before the pandemic. It became like a puzzle: I could hear something special, but also that the pieces didn’t fit together well or feel complete. The breakthrough came in realising that this project was meant to be more about creation than preservation, and that it didn’t need to be a literal document any more. It could still be faithful, but instead to the spirit that inspired this music and my travels in the first place, instead of a particular recording. I created new musical starting points, and invited artists I met on my travels plus others, asking them to choose one to begin to work with together. Some artists incorporated our previous recordings, others set off in a new direction, while I shaped the pieces and found a way to connect them together.”
“There’s a tension in music, as in any creative activity: between wanting to document and reflect the times we live in, or to escape and hide from them. In this music I’ve tried to find a balance between both of these, and in doing so, to listen to my heart.”
Special thanks to: All participants, Frosti Jonsson (Bistro Boy), Michael Bearpark, Andrew Ostler, Jack Chuter, Enis Gümüş, Çağrı Tozluoğlu, Oğul Köker, Morgan Watson, and finally my beloved family
credits
released April 6, 2023
Recorded, mixed and produced by Elif Yalvaç. Mastering: James Armstrong. Album cover: Kristinn Þeyr Magnusson.
Elif Yalvaç: Guitar, synthesizer, game boy, field recording, laptop
Wilma Hultén (Sweden): Synthesizer, laptop
Kristoffer Lislegaard (Norway): Synthesizer, laptop
Saaramaija Żórawski (Finland): voice, field recordings (with Antti Kainulainen)
Magnús Bergsson (Iceland): Field recordings
Ríkharður H Friðriksson (Iceland): Guitar
Daniele Moog Girolamo (Italy-Iceland): Tape recorder, guitar
Jesper Pedersen (Denmark-Iceland): Modular synthesizer, field recordings
Charles Ross (Scotland-Iceland): Yakutian fiddle, Yakutian jews harp, panpipe, Indian harmonium, field recordings
Asalaus (Iceland): Guitar, field recordings
Michael Bearpark: Morleytron
From NYC come these 10 songs shrouded in spectral synths and mysterious textures that alternately soothe & unsettle Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 10, 2023
