ABOUT
The story behind iKi Muzik
iKi Muzik is a Tokyo/Istanbul-based independent record label owned by Turkish contemporary music composer, pianist and singer Selen Gülün.
The label works with AWAL as the main digital distributor.
While I was looking for a name for my new independent record label, I did research about the word iKi. As a Turkish word, it always had a strong impact on me. iKi is the name of the number 2 in Turkish. Not being ONE but TWO had some imperfection and honesty in it. Also as an adjective, it means one more than 1! One derivation of the word iKi in Turkish is iKilik, which can be described as Duality. Dualism has always been one of the concepts that best explains my existence, understanding of life, vision and production as an artist.
Iki (いき, often written粋) is known as a traditional aesthetic ideal in Japan. The idea belongs to ordinary people of urban life. It is born in Edo, that is why it has deep aesthetical and philosophical roots to Tokyo. *“Iki is an expression of simplicity, sophistication, spontaneity, and originality. It is ephemeral, straightforward, measured, and unselfconscious. Iki is not pretentious. The phrase iki is generally used in Japanese culture to describe qualities that are aesthetically appealing and when applied to a person, what they do, or have, constitutes a high compliment.”
Long time ago, I made a list of words to try to summarize my ideas for the musical world that I wanted to characterize with a label. As a matter of fact, these exact words were all in my list to complete the musical identity I was seeking. And, the name iKi itself demonstrates perfectly well my dual life between Japan and Turkey for the last four years, too. That is how my search came to an end!
As a label, my ideal is creating a musical world which is openhearted to contemporary musical works and creations by urban individuals. My plan is to bring together short or long-scale modern musical works, improvisations, composed electronic, electro-acoustic music, and the ‘other’ sounds that cannot reach their listeners, under the same roof.
In my creative life, I have been blessed to work with many original and interesting people. I am excited that soon I will be listing these great artists and supporters collaborating together with iKi Muzik.
Stay tuned!