Life, the orb, and the claws of the night
Hailing from Istanbul and now based in Berlin, Hüma Utku is a self-taught musician with a background in academic psychology. After two remarkable albums—Gnosis (2019) and The Psychologist (2022)—she has built a solid reputation on the experimental electronic scene. Her charisma and artistic maturity are the finest ambassadors for a music where raw textures and field recordings merge seamlessly with the electroacoustic arabesques of her compositions. Since 2025, Utku has also been running her own label: Mercurial Cycles.
Recognized and celebrated by her peers, Hüma Utku has received numerous accolades and awards, and has performed at some of the most prestigious international festivals, including Berlin Atonal, Sonic Acts in Amsterdam, Dark Mofo in Australia, and CTM Festival in Berlin.
In 2025, she returns with a new conceptual album, Dracones, released on April 4 on Editions Mego. With this new work, the artist invites us into a visceral, intimate, dark and fantastical experience, a descent into the shadowy depths of her psyche, shaped by the sensory and societal upheavals brought on by her pregnancy. The album title references the Latin expression “Hic sunt dracones” (“Here be dragons”), a phrase used by medieval cartographers to indicate unknown or dangerous territories, often illustrated with sea serpents and mythical creatures in the uncharted zones of maps.
While the tracks are inseparable in intent, each is a unique facet of the same gem. The journey opens through an inner doorway: “A World Between Worlds”, an intimate and mysterious piece that wanders through a lush forest. The sound of the Lyraei, an electromagnetic string instrument, a modern interpretation of the ancient lyre, crafted and performed by Mihalis Shammas, serves here as a fantastical bestiary.
“Comfort of The Shadows”, beautifully captured in a dedicated video by visual artist Marco Ciceri, continues the baroque tone of the introduction. Between shadow and light, Utku explores the shifting surface of her body in transformation. The sonic roughness and lyrical saturation become bumps and hollows on her stretched skin, which itself seems to serve as a living score.
With “A Familial Curse”, Utku takes a sharp turn—an industrial and magnetic track. She constructs a cathedral of electric saws, a personal symbol of lineage, where a heavy, organic heartbeat pulses throughout. It grows in intensity, like a beacon of light in the dark. That light eventually envelops us in a cascade of strings, drawing us—anxiously—into a familial, comforting nest.
“Here Be Dragons” features yet another guiding heartbeat—that of her unborn son, sampled during an ultrasound and layered under cellistic turbulence. We’re invited on a voyage through hostile waters, drifting in a fog of sonic waves where Utku’s ghostly voice acts as an incantation to the ineffable mysteries of her child’s genesis.
“Care in Consume” is built around a long insectoid vibration, a spectral chorus from afar—a sort of electronic requiem, a hymn to matriphagy.
With “A House Within a House”, claustrophobia sets in. It could easily be the score to a horror film, certainly the most cinematic piece on the album. Once again, Utku plays with distance and proximity, clarity and concealment, treble and bass. Sounds come and go, then vanish into a gestating horizon. All that remains are approaching shadows that ultimately surround us and reveal, in the closing moments, that we ourselves are those shadows.
Finally, “Ayaz’a” offers an optimistic epilogue at the end of this shadowed path. Voices rise with the sun breaking through, showing the road ahead, wrapped in lyrical layers of analog synths. It is a note of hope from the composer to her son—an invitation for our imagination to roam freely over a desolate yet fertile land.
With Dracones, Hüma Utku shares the emotions of a deeply embodied experience—a musical testimony that words alone could never capture. Like all true poets, she possesses the rare gift of making us feel the unspeakable, through a bold and masterfully orchestrated risk. After a short live tour in April, we can only hope to see her soon in France. Consider this your heads-up…
Hüma Utku – Dracones
Label: Editions Mego
Format: Digital + Vinyl
Release Date: April 12, 2025
