When the haunting echoes of Ankara’s urban sprawl meet the visceral pulse of screamo, you find plein de vie., a band whose name suggests vitality yet whose music delves into the shadows where society’s glossy veneer fractures.
Born at the wane of 2021, the three-person collective that forms this outfit has dedicated itself to an ethos of anonymity and unity, channeling their creative energies not into personal pedestals but into the shared soil from which their music grows—a riposte to the very materialism their lyrics scrutinize.
Their recent EP, “Akrobatlar Savaşı Yitirdi,” dropped into the world’s ears on the 27th of October, is an audacious step into the arena of live-recorded music—a medium where the raw and unvarnished truths can’t be camouflaged by the studio’s brush.
This decision for authenticity in sound is an artisan’s choice, handled with the deft fingers of Thomas Madge at Davul Odası, where the EP was not just recorded but also mixed and mastered. The vocals, a twin effort by Orkun Aldemir at Davul Odası and Ceyhun Yücel at Stüdyo Allegro, act as the sinew binding the EP’s bones—a visceral outpouring of narrative and noise.
Arda Koçakoğlu’s artistic vision manifests in the EP’s cover—a poignant depiction of Budai, often a figure representing contentment in Eastern philosophies, here shown succumbing to a tar swamp. This visual storytelling runs parallel to the band’s lyrical themes: the suffocation of genuine values in a society fixated on the superficial.
plein de vie. has not trodden this path alone. The release is a mosaic of community effort, carried on the shoulders of a syndicate of independent labels—including but not limited to Pirkaf Records, Mevzu Records, and Fiadh Productions.
This alliance is a patchwork banner under which “Akrobatlar Savaşı Yitirdi” has marched into the public domain, a testament to the collaborative backbone of independent music.
Through the EP, plein de vie. weaves a narrative fabric where the personal is political, and the political is intensely personal. It’s a sonic exploration of the battlefields we navigate: loss, alienation, and the dogged search for hope in a world too often defined by economic stature. Here, in Ankara’s sonic undercurrents, plein de vie. doesn’t just add to the noise—they question it, challenge it, and invite us to ponder the worth of what often passes by unnoticed.
