Dehliz by Kit Sebastian
‘Dehliz’ – the latest nugget to emerge from the studio of UK-based duo Kit Sebastian – was inspired by the stars of 70s Flamenco Pop such as Las Grecas and Trigal. “The similarities between Middle Eastern and Spanish music that came from Arab-Andalusia was something that we had always known about but had never explored,” say the band.
The key for the arrangement was to match the drama of the emotion of the vocals through thick instrumentation. Along with flamenco guitar, phased out fuzz, distorted off-kilter synths, Farfisa organ, harpsichord, we have the addition of session musicians playing spaghetti western strings to create urgency and a horn section to further the sense of drama. After recording all these instruments, of course it was necessary to add castanets.
“Before writing the lyrics, we were thinking about the concept ‘duende’ – an emotional intensity that arises in a powerful and soulful flamenco performance, something indescribable that’s born from suffering and pain but it’s something pure and strong,” explain K. and Merve. “It’s a rare moment when the music and the emotion converge so perfectly that they overtake both the performer and the audience. So, we wanted the theme and emotional delivery of the song to reflect the expressive, restless nature of flamenco, rooted in conveying raw emotion through both poetry and musicality, where sorrow and defiance intertwine, as in ‘cante jondo’.”
The Turkish lyrics act as a dialogue with one’s past—wounds acknowledged but not mourned, memories neither clung to nor entirely abandoned. The title ‘Dehliz’, meaning “passageway”, evokes the idea of moving through darkness with the belief that, eventually, light will break through as one confronts both their past and themselves.
Kit Sebastian is a duo formed in London by Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, spread between Turkey and France. Their music is a meeting point of different genres from Anatolian Psychedelia and Brazilian Tropicalia to 60’s European pop and American jazz.