Meet Galya Bisengalieva, the Kazakh-British composer and violinist known for her deep and atmospheric sound. Delving into unyielding drones, she gracefully navigates the realms of folk, ambient, classical, and electronic music. Founder of NOMAD Music Productions, she birthed her initial EPs, ‘EP ONE’ and ‘TWO,’ laying the foundation for experimental sounds.
Galya’s inaugural album, “Aralkum,” unveiled in September 2020 by One Little Independent Records, mirrors her keen focus on expansive tonal landscapes, echoing the haunting narrative of the vanishing Aral Sea. Join us as we journey through her musical odyssey, embracing collaborations with luminaries across various genres and a tapestry of performances at renowned venues worldwide. From the Barbican to the Paris Philharmonie, Galya Bisengalieva’s musical universe beckons.
KALTBLUT caught up with Galya as part of our #TheCulturalConnection-series. Read the interview below.
KALTBLUT: Tell me about your release, Polygon. How did you come up with the subject for it, how does that follow on from your previous solo releases?
Galya: I was born in the Kazakh (then capital) Almaty in the late 80s before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Subjects I choose to write about are often related to my childhood in the country; conversation with my grandparents at the kitchen table, news on the radio and tv. I come from a family of musicians; both of my parents played for the National State Symphony Orchestra in Kazakhstan; my mother as a cellist and my father as an orchestral leader and soloist. Growing up my grandmother sang folk songs and grandfather played the long-necked Turkic folk instrument the dombra.
That time In Kazakhstan had a massive impact on me, it’s a vast country, diverse, culturally rich with breathtaking nature. The country and its people have been through an unfair share of tragedies. The Polygon is an extremely dark time in Kazakh history that is barely spoken about in the west, but I feel it is essential that this is shared and spoken about as for the researchers, scientists and citizens who live there this is still very much present in their life. So I’m trying to do that just like I did with Aralkum previously.
KALTBLUT: With your album, you’re aiming to return to the source material of your home country of Kazakhstan and the post-USSR-colonial suffering of its ecology and people. How did you approach that in the composing and production process?
Galya: I wanted to tell a story through the album before, during soviet testing and after. It took me to dark places but I wanted to leave the album on a positive note, the resilience of people and the ability of nature to regenerate itself. I did go much deeper into electronic production and beat making on this one, as well as using my voice as an instrument to work alongside the violin.
The album is completely off grid, which allows the beats to shift in a way that feels uncomfortable and more organic. I find that beat warping is becoming more and more central to my composition. The harmony is often atonal also. I even push further by actively drawing on quarter tones and spectral tuning, it all helps me tell a story.
KALTBLUT: The themes of your work are environmental and the geopolitical for meditations on events that escape the power of words to capture. Can you elaborate on those themes? How do they come across in your artistic work?
Galya: The story of the Semipalatinsk Test Site (The Polygon) located on the steppe in north east Kazakhstan was the Soviet Union’s primary testing zone for nuclear weapons. They conducted 456 nuclear tests there from 1949 to 1989, the vast landscape provided anonymity and isolation for the regime. Each track on the LP is named after features within The Polygon; villages, towns, natural aspects and other landmarks. To the Soviet leaders it was “uninhabited” but in fact the steppe was the crucible of Kazakh culture, home to poets, musicians and the country’s most famous literary figure Abai Quananbaiuly, as well as extraordinary ecology of mountains, hills and pine forests running along the river Irtysh. For example the main drive in the second track was the pulsating rhythm that I improvised using guitar pedals and a deep detuned violin bass.
These elements are juxtaposed by plucked strings and flowing melody. This one I feel is a real electro-acoustic hybrid. I was imagining the beauty of Kazakh nature before the dark story of the Polygon and was inspired by an image that Philip Hatcher Moore made when he went out there. He managed to capture beautiful blue and pink colours as the dusk was falling on the village Saryzhal. This image is also part of the artwork on the upcoming album. Balapan for example is a facility at the Semipalatinsk site primarily used for underground explosions.
I was imagining people going to work constructing and building in a repetitive, cyclical motion and not really realising or being told what it was for or the impact it was going to bring. Balapan in Kazakh means chick, it’s what we call babies, and when I was growing up in Almaty we had a TV channel for toddlers called the same name; ironic for a place that wrought so much harm.
KALTBLUT: How have your studies and career in London influenced your work and creativity?
Galya: I won a music scholarship to the UK and studied violin first at the Royal Academy for undergrad then a masters at the Royal College of Music. It was a very straight-laced classical training which gave me a deep understanding of the violin, harmony melody. All the building blocks that are need to create and perform music at the highest level.
However with that type of training there is a high risk of becoming blind to other music practices, forms, styles and genres. I wanted to rebel against that as my musical inspirations have always been broader, I find real joy in deconstructing what a violin can be used for sonically and finding my own way with electronic production and composition.
KALTBLUT: You have done a lot of work on film scores, as your circular bowing technic is quite unusual and lends itself beautifully to atmospheres and soundscapes. How does this differ from your other work?
How collaborative is the process between you as an artist, the composers like Hildur Gudnadottir and Volker Bertelmann, and directors like Luca Guadagnino. And on a completely different plane – you’ve also worked with pop artists such as Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, and Radiohead. How have these collaborations come about – how involved are those artists in the recording process with an artist such as yourself?
Galya: It varies from composer to composer. In my earlier musical career I led a couple of orchestras. There is a lot of session work in London and I used to do a lot of it and have been lucky to work with a large variety of film composers and rock and pop artists.
The kind of projects I have been involved in tend to be a little more esoteric and as part of the process as well as straight up playing I have improvised and brought in more left field techniques and sonic textures to expand the musical language. I do this more for myself now on my own album projects and recently wrote a first feature film soundtrack which was released last year.
Stream “Poligon” here and follow Galya on Instagram at @galbisen to keep up with her upcoming releases and projects.
Photos by Alex Schipper.
You can revisit all Cultural Connection interviews at #TheCulturalConnection here.
