CEYLAN ERTEM

Turkish singer-songwriter Ceylan Ertem was born on December 26, 1980, in Adapazarı and took her first musical steps as a singer in Akhisar Municipality’s children choir. After picking up the piano in the '90s, she moved to Istanbul to study for a bachelor's degree in musicology at Yıldız Technical University and formed an alt-rock band with Tuncay Korkmaz called Anima in 2000, releasing the Animasal album in 2006. She spent the next few years working on collaborative projects, including Octophone with Philipp Gropper and Wanja Slavin in Berlin, before inaugurating her solo career in 2010 with debut album Soluk, rallying a team of 40 musicians for the debut which mixed jazz with swirling indie-folk and Björk-esque avant-pop theatrics. The follow-up, Ütopyalar Güzeldir, arrived in 2012 with a third album, Amansız Gücenik, landing in 2014. In 2015, she issued a cover album called YUH! and dropped her fourth LP, Yine de Amin, two years later. She has since issued three more albums: Seni Senin Gibiler Sevsin (2019), Cahille Sohbeti Kestim (2020) and Duyuyor Musun? (2022).