Impérieux debuts on Hessle Audio with the Fena EP, an immersive collection of 4 tracks defined by his unpredictable and varied sonic palette. Drawing on a heritage that threads through Turkey, Greece and his home city of Kırcaali in Bulgaria, Alper Durmush channels a turbulent year in which six months of creative stillness ignited unexpectedly into an explosive burst of musical ideas.
“Fena is a word my Mum used to call me as a kid” recounts Durmush on the title track. “The name comes from Turkish, but with a Balkan twist, it means a mischievous rascal – wild, unpredictable, a bit too much at times”. This restless energy is perfectly captured with jittering interferance and snarling sawtooth synths bursting through the mix, threatening to overwhelm the speakers and sending sound engineers running for cover. ‘Sickomode’ encapsulates the push-pull emotional sensibility of the EP, with confidence and meloncholy rotating, shifting, and giving way to each other.
‘Saat’ is an attempt to recreate a track based solely on a surreal description, relayed by a veteran of the rave scene in his home town – “This guy told me about a festival in the woods back in the early 2000s, where someone played a track with dogs barking in the break – the volume rising constantly.” The initial dissonance of its detuned lead releases into a euphoric rush of melody, a combination which is becoming something of a producer trademark. The EP closes with the quiet, unwavering warmth of ‘Cawuso’, a nickname for a person that the artist met last year. “This very special person showered me with kindness and purity. It almost felt unreal, so I decided to dedicate this track to them.”
