Deniz Cuylan knows something about you that you might not know about yourself. He knows this thing about you because he has looked inside himself and found a yearning there. He then looked out onto the world and found that the outline of his own sharp, unmet desire reflected back at him. Defining what it is in humans that create the space for this vacuous frame and its hold on the human mind is the thematic backbone of Deniz's latest album, No Such Thing As Free Will. The title, is a reference to the fact that no actions are undertaken without some stimulant, some trigger or motivation. Even when this stimulant is our own unmet needs and desires, forces that owe their origins to our own interiority, they are nonetheless, those forces that plunge us into the world. In fact, it is the forces of the interior of our own minds whose push and pull we may find most persuasive. The clearness with which Deniz explores this subject matter is extraordinary, giving voice to the unwritten and secret laws that guide the human spirit, drawing a dotted line across the map of collected consciousness with a single, humble instrument, a Santos model classical guitar. An instrument whose dry and nimble tones and willful constitution make it as much a collaborator with Deniz on the album as a tool for expressing his own volition. No Such Thing As Free Will is a gorgeous, modern jazz-guitar and neo-classical album that cuts through much of the self dilution people wrap their actions in. As it is not the attainment of the thing that you desire that makes life worth living, but the chase of its elusive center which gives it its purpose.
Get a copy of No Such Thing As Free Will on vinyl and CD from Hush Hush Records here.
