Cevdet Erek is an Istanbul based artist, musician and member of the band Nekropsi. To name a few of his projects, Erek presented "Raum Der Rhythmen" at dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, which also travelled to Istanbul and Sydney biennials. A corresponding book titled Room Of Rhythms 1 was published by Walther König. He also held a solo exhibition, Alt Üst, at Bristol's Spike Island in 2014.

Here you will find two excerpts from Erek's soundtrack to the Turkish political thriller Frenzy (original title: Abluka), directed by Emin Alper and winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.

“One of the producers, Cem Doruk, saw my Room Of Rhythms at dOCUMENTA and my sound and music work for another feature, Sivas, by Kaan Müjdeci, and proposed me to the team,” Erek says over email, talking about how he came to do the soundtrack.

“Inspirations are many for sure,” he continues. “Other than what’s written and shot as a source of influence (I mean the film itself); generally [inspiration came] from my interest in what’s happening in the field of the left wing demonstrations that I’ve observed since youth. Two starting points were: a helicopter recording that I did with a friend on Mayday 2015, in a real ‘abluka’ in Şişli, İstanbul, and [secondly] impressions from a halay [a type of folkloric dance] right after early 2015’s election results in Turkey.

“Then I immediately started working on the final track of the film. Emin wanted more and more power, and his input was very important when re-making the synths and beats, all live, with percussion and drums, then adding on each other. [...] What I originally proposed when I got the sound and music task was to establish one aesthetic for all sounds in the film.”

Erek will represent Turkey at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Frenzy is released in vinyl and digital formats by Subtext on 13 May.

Nathan Budzinksi spoke to Erek in The Wire 362 during his Alt Üst exhibition at Bristol's Spike Island in The Wire 362. Subscribers to The Wire can read that article via Exact Editions.