Ekin Fil’s music is able to create a deep and lasting emotional response, and Coda’s depleted, skeletal-thin atmosphere is imbued with a mournful set of melancholic melodies and ghosted harmonies. Her quiet voice floats in on the wave of a cool harmony, its strength brushed away by it. The harmony, much like her vocal, is barely there itself – a ghost-like thing hanging in the background. Recently, and with great success, the Turkish musician has been concentrating on the art and compositional form of the film score, and shadows of the cinema are visible when one observes Coda, leaning into its light and obscuring it in deep and unquiet silhouettes and sounds.
The washed-out, hazy harmonies are soaked in reverb, and they feel lonely, as if cut-off from things, and out of sync with the current era; an outsider in a crowd of smiling couples. The music feels restless and ill-at-ease, in spite of the soothing vocal lines which repeat words and phrases just beyond a whisper, almost to itself, either as a personal, reassuring mantra or an indication of a distressed mind, looking for an outlet or a relief of some kind.
The piano progression of ‘Burn Up’ is all the rarer for its brief clarity, giving the music the appearance (or the illusion) of becoming more distinct, at least temporarily, but a tail of reverb is still attached to the passing notes, and the cobwebs haven’t been completely cleared. The follow-up track is ‘Grand Illusion’, where the music once more retreats into a nest of shadows, reverting back into different shades of grey, avoiding the saturation of colour. The gritty distortion of ‘On Sand’ has a sudden upsurge in dynamics and volume, which could indicate an unannounced mood-swing, moving from despondency to outright rage in the blink of an eye, and there are violent episodes among the calmer moments. Coda hints at endings – not just in its name but in its lethargic throes. These are tired sounds.