Galya Bisengalieva (Guest rec from Olivia)

Today we have a guest recommendation from Olivia, a writer with interests in culture, poetry, and the materiality of industrial and post-industrial development.

I’d like to recommend Galya Bisengalieva, a violinist and composer originally from Kazakhstan. Her career has spanned rigorous classical training (first in the Soviet tradition in Kazakhstan and later in the Royal Academy of Music), as well as work with contemporary projects from Radiohead to Frank Ocean. Her solo work has consistently returned to influences from Kazakhstan and across Central Asia: Her first LP, Aralkum, refers to the human-made environmental disaster of the shrinking Aral Sea as a result of Soviet agricultural development. Her more recent album, Polygon, refers to Soviet nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, a site of sacred and cultural significance to Kazakhs. The subsequent Polygon Reflections expands the work with remixes. I find the music beautiful, haunting and complex, both in its composition and in the way it captures the eeriness of the long ecological effects from intense industrialised development.

Polygon - Galya Bisengalieva (34m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Aralkum - Galya Bisengalieva (34m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Have a great Thursday.