Esmerine have a new album coming out on September 3rd via Constellation. Dalmak, their fourth full-length album, takes its name from the Turkish verb meaning to dive into, to contemplate, to lose oneself in, to be absorbed in, to bathe in, to plummet. The Turkish presence and influence on the album goes beyond the name. Esmerine, now comprising co-founder and cellist Rebecca Foon (Saltland, Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire To Flames), former Godspeed You! Black Emperor drummer Bruce Cawdron on marimba, percussionist Jamie Thompson (Unicorns, Islands) and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson, recorded most of Dalmak in Istambul. After their European tour in 2011 and 2012 with stops in the city, the group was invited over for an artist residency, where they were joined by another four Turkish guest players, Hakan Vreskala, Baran Aşık, Ali Kazim Akdağ and James Hakan Dedeoğlu on various instruments, including some unknown to us like bendir, darbuka, erbane, meh, barama and saz.
The album’s press release describes Dalmak as “a tour-de-force of cross-cultural music-making, emotive but unsentimental, deeply textured and detailed but never precious, superbly guided throughout by a balance of DIY rock, new folk and modern classical/contemporary sensibilities.”
Barkin Engin and Metin Bozkurt initially recorded the album in Istanbul, and later in Montréal, Jace Lasek (Wolf Parade, The Besnard Lakes, Suuns) and Ian Ilavsky achieved “the album’s gorgeously saturated warmth, depth and pulsing grit”.
Esmerine have shared an edit of the outstanding ‘Translator’s Clos II’, the first taste from the album. Enjoy.
