Tendertwin, the project of Istanbul-born, London-based Bilge Nur Yilmaz, has released her new single “The Runners.” She’s also set to release her debut EP Ship Argo on July 5th. Mixing a familiar folk sound with an industrial glitch where landscapes are entangled in ambient sounds, wrong-footing melodies and unpredictable arrangements.
Tendertwin weaves a tapestry of her own invention with “The Runners”: a fleeting grasp at the romanticized essence of past and present. Bringing together samples of Tendertwin’s own newborn niece recorded through a baby phone, a Grandmother synth, a 12-string guitar, and gradually guttural strings to create a bed of sound for her undulating vocals to waltz on — “The Runners” becomes a delicate dance through corridors of memory to find refuge, where the coda comes back to carry you on cadential currents.
On the track, Tendertwin said “‘Running’ is a metaphor I can trust: it’s a symbol of the relentless to-and-fro we do every day, and we all run into each other on the way.
“I don’t know how the runners start their day, I don’t know what keeps them up at night — all I know is that glance we share in our resembling outfits as we drift past on a sunny morning is an unspoken ode in solidarity. It seems to me we’re always running towards or running away from something. It’s not painless, but it keeps me going. Can I be curious about this pain? Can I turn it into a game, a dance?”
Nurtured transatlantic, Tendertwin is a forager for half-lived stories. Born in Istanbul, Bilge Nur Yilmaz’s distinctive voice subtly soaks up Turkey’s rich musical heritage from the lapping tides of the Black Sea and Mediterranean, and filters it through drifting time spent in Philadelphia, Oxford, and London.
How are you feeling about this one?
