Kerem Atalay, a musician and guitarist working out of Mount Rainier, Maryland, taught himself guitar during his time studying computer science at college. From those origins emerged a technical and evocative brand of instrumental music in the American Primitive tradition, songs which forgo accompaniment and embellishment to allow the finger-picked guitar to do it’s work.
However, the relatively simplicity of the arrangement says nothing of the detail and scope of the music, as though in this genre there is an inverse relationship between number of instruments and level of detail. Indeed, as his bio states, Atalay’s music “varies in structure and character, ranging from long-form compositions to brief impressionistic explorations of a theme,” and thus through guitar alone he is equally capable of evoking moments in time as he is entire landscapes.
Teaming up with the good folks at Dust Etc. to put out what will be the first album that he has not released himself, this month sees the release of the latest Kerem Atalay, Summer Winter. Performing something of a balancing act between the poles of long form and vignette, the album draws its atmospheric core from the equally antithetical seasons of the title. The good folks at Post-Trash featured lead single ‘Summer 1’ a few weeks ago, a track they described as “warm and vibrant, beaming down like the hot sun and entrenched in long day vibes and late nights […] creep[ing] forward with a winding arpeggiated melody, bright and beautiful, with a sense of wonder.”
We’re super pleased to be able to share ‘Winter 2’, a brand new track from the thematic flip-side of the album. But that’s not to say Kerem Atalay moves away from a sense of wonder. The duality between summer and winter is not easily partitioned into a happy/sad divide, and ‘Winter 2’ could be said to match or even trump the brightness of ‘Summer 1’. This is a track representing early January mornings where the sun stretches shadows and shimmers layers of frost, life emerging from the night before, red cheeked and speckled with an icy light.
Summer Winter will be released on the 22nd June via Dust Etc. and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.
Tape design and photographs by Mindy Burgess and Caleb Kong