Ahmet Ali Arslan's New Album Monastir Released on Kura Records!
Ahmet Ali Arslan's new ambient instrumental album, "Manastır," blends the charms he encounters while alone in nature with his musician friends, opening doors to a new form and expression in the artist's journey. After moving to Ayvalık in 2022, time slowed down for Arslan, evolving into an interdimensional existence through frequent long nature walks. The sense of spaced time that permeates Arslan's music ultimately morphs into an album imbued with eternity. The artist's freeform recordings, created within nature, combined with the feelings of loneliness and helplessness experienced following the 2023 Maraş Earthquake—perhaps as a method of healing—transform into a collective work. Each guest individually yet collectively brings soul to this album.
While it unfolds like a story from beginning to end, both the pieces and the processes by which they came together are diverse. Each track features a guest. These guests contribute not only with their instruments but also as composers and producers. The album, which brings together diverse processes from the history of ambient music, is bound together by geography. The diverse yet evocative identities of these 17 musicians, mostly in their 30s, and their diverse instrumental offerings, from the stringed tanbur to the theremin, make the album a first in its genre for "Turkish Ambient."
The album generally resonates with a natural, spontaneous approach. The style is far from the perfectionism of a studio musician, opting for a style that remains as it was in the moment. The album's production creates a somewhat lo-fi sound reminiscent of the naivety and incomplete atmosphere of old, unfinished demo recordings, a sound that lends itself to this kind of music, and is somewhat reminiscent of found recordings.
The album's pastel colors have become a distinct artistic work. The resonance of Manastır in the heart returns to the earth. These recordings, made in various parts of the Aegean, invite the listener to accept what is, like a mother goddess ritual where the Aegean dualities of horizontal and vertical, masculine and feminine, pine and olive coexist.
PRESS RELEASE
Ahmet Ali Arslan – MONASTERY
Ahmet Ali Arslan's ambient instrumental album, Manastır, blends the charms he encountered while alone in nature with his musician friends, filling the spaced-out perception of time with eternity. Moments woven with silence transform into a timeless and profound journey on the album. The artist's free-form recordings in nature, combined with the feelings of loneliness and helplessness experienced after the 2023 Maraş Earthquake, transform into a collective work—perhaps as a method of healing. Each guest individually, yet collectively, brings soul to this album.
TRACKS IN THE ALBUM
STORIES AS TOLD BY THE ARTIST
1. Holiday Morning in Ayvalık
It all started when I moved to Ayvalık. Time stretched, expanded, and stretched. I could only hear this album far from Istanbul. The Ayvalık Islands and the Northern Aegean became my playground, and I often immersed myself in nature. The Ayvalık field recording of this song dates from the summer I had just decided to move, a truly festive morning. Berke Can Özcan joined my blues, almost as insistent as the doves, with his drums, vibraphone, and toys.
2. Next to the Raven
"Kuzgun'un Yanı" is one of the songs that summarizes the album. It's a style that's long since crossed the line between showcasing music and making it for oneself. Don't we have time to tune? Listen? Does it clear the mind, or does it take us there? This track has a bit of Kazdağları Mehmetalan (a small draft of this music was created there), and a bit of Çamlı Monastery, where I recorded—the monastery that gives the album its name.
3. Demircidere
You should go to Kozak. Who ever heard that giant rocks and pine trees look so good together? If you're quiet and respectful enough (that's what being a good child in nature is all about), you might even spot wild horses. Demircidere and Kozak, on one side, are face to face with the dystopia of stone quarries, and on the other, a pine nut forest where grocers sell wine by the can. A low plateau. It's as if Volkan İncüvez wasn't blowing the flute, but playing the Irish flute! We dedicated this song to all our animal friends.
4. The Dervish's Lullaby
You should meet Derviş. He's one of my best friends in Ayvalık, with a head ten times wider than the average adult. How can you dance like this at four? I made this recording near Çandır on the Ekincik-Çandır walk. Tuncay Korkmaz played the harmonica with his magical breath over it. Dervişkuş, you are now mine. Let's fly, then.
5. Nisyros
Nisyros is a volcanic island south of Datça. Because it's so tiny, it appears to be just a volcano from above. Its crater is truly uncanny, a powerful feminine force that hypnotizes and draws you in. My friend and Alexander Teknik instructor, Savvas Koudounas, and I played and recorded this song in a large, glass-fronted room in a hotel overlooking the harbor of Nisyros. It's a basement below grade, its back to the road and its face to the sea. The sea, the harbor, and the ships, with all their unique sounds, are present in this song.
6. Fir Road
It's been maybe 7-8 years since I recorded this song. Alican İpek and I were going to lock ourselves in the studio for two weeks and make an ambient lullaby album. It might be one of Manastır's inspirations. We did it blazing fast, maybe in an hour. I'm going to enjoy the demos. Fir Road is a walkable route in Kaz Mountains National Park. It's also called Fir Terrace. I heard the strangest birds I've ever heard here.
7. Serdar's Lullaby
This song is a tribute to Serdar Ateşer, the wonderful man who opened Ayvalık's doors to me. It came out while I was hanging out in his magical abode, which looks more like a ship than a house. Then my traveling companion Ozan Sarohan touched on it with his lute. It's one of the few songs I recorded and combined, track by track, for the album.
8. Fountain Street No: 3
Thunder, the gradually decreasing rain, water cascading from the rooftops onto the stone streets, and amidst the dwindling rain, the sound of a television from the house opposite—a shouting announcer announcing the match and a man whose every word is a swear word. A sonic landscape from Ayvalık. Ozan Tekin sent something so shocking over this material that I was shocked. A piano piece, his beautiful heart shining through from beginning to end, like a gift.
9. Returning from Pergamum
Bergama is one of the strangest ancient cities in Türkiye. Its theater sits on a steep slope, overlooking a hill where the sun sets. On the drive back to Ayvalık, I played a melody I'd been humming, expanding it on my long-necked bağlama (a traditional Turkish lute) and transforming it into a musical movement. Back then, I had extra frets installed on my instrument to keep up with the sounds of Classical Turkish Music. While I don't follow a makam here, I particularly enjoyed these frets during the transitions. Emre Malikler added the famous Anatolian Side construction sounds to the recording I made in my room, transforming the music into a completely different kind of theater with his sound design.
10. Yuno's Lullaby
My second home on the Turkish coast is Gökova. I spent a significant portion of the summer there after moving to Ayvalık. It's such a relief to find someone you can trust when moving. The sweet devil to whom this lullaby was dedicated is the local headman. I recorded the ukulele in the cistern at İnişdibi. Even though I woke up at 6 a.m. to record, the passing cars, along with the cistern's reverberation, became the music's interludes. Efe Demiral, with his guitar, opened up this dome, expanded it, and rebuilt it.
11. Ahmetce
Did you notice the chords coming out of some electric car engines? I probably stole a composer's work, but I imagine he'd laugh it off. Me, kneeling beside the car like a monkey, trying to catch the engine sound, the sound of the wheels on wet mud and stones, the rain itself, and then Idil Meşe's witchcraft.
12. Yeldeğirmeni Street
I stayed in Yeldeğimen for a month. From the window, I could see, and more importantly, hear, a high school's concrete playground. As I was wondering if these kids were playing football or tearing each other apart, I thought about recording. The sound of a ball exploding on concrete, the joy and anger on one side, and the intensely passionate relationship of these adolescents with life. Cihan Gülbudak performed such a dark loop on his theremin that I was convinced—these kids were tearing each other apart a million years ago, just as they were now.
13th Belt
Kemer is the album's southernmost and easternmost point. Released on a rainy day, I heard a glimpse of Bülent Ortaçgil's guitar playing, and Barış Demirel and I turned this simple sketch into a loop performance. When I listen to it, I always imagine Barış's trumpets as angel-voiced children.
14. Monastery Road
The spirituality of Monastery is a reflection of the feminine within me, reunited after a long separation. I found Joseph Campbell's intercultural Mother Goddess in the horizontal, forgiving nature of the northern Aegean. The predatory language that acts upon the world, bending and twisting it to its will, dominates the world and my mind. When I manage to silence that voice through long, solitary walks, a forgiving, accepting, spatial, luminous state of mind emerges beneath it—a place where many things can exist simultaneously. What a luxury it is to be away from human sight. After discovering Çamlı Monastery, amidst the walking path in Cunda that I now know like the back of my hand, the story of the album truly clicked. I realize that the reason I stayed away from faith for so long was because I was ashamed of the femininity of this state of surrender that dissolves cause and effect, having locked away and repressed that femininity for years. The idea of being your own mother and your own father occupies a place in narratives of growing up. I found my "good mother" after moving to Ayvalık.
This isn't a collective manifesto I devised with my guests. They weren't even aware of these words; this is my story. This feminine might be winking at you in the album's earthy origins, in the way we took the instruments out of the studio process and gave them back their space, in the subtle and slow movement of some songs' rises and falls, beginnings and endings, like the olive-bearing hills of the Aegean, in the way we recorded what we found in nature and our instruments, without judgment.
In the final piece, after a walk filled with birdsong, I hit record and heard the engine of a ship (which I later realized was a Coast Guard boat), which had me feeling quite depressed. Then I dared to admit it, making room in my ear, and the ship slowly transformed into Richard Wright. I invited Muaz Ceyhan to make music with the sea, Richard, the fisherman arguing with his girlfriend on the phone in the distance, occasionally casting his line, and me whispering something to him. I think it was magical. It's the story of Manastır Yolu.
VIDEO
Ayvalık Monastery Concert//
Ahmet Ali Arslan
Bio//
Ahmet Ali Arslan has established an acoustic and intimate musical language with his releases since 2015. Known for his velvety voice and simple guitar, the artist attracted attention with his "From the Garden" series. Over time, Arslan moved away from melancholic tones and toward a simpler, more narrative style. In June 2025, he released his instrumental ambient album "Manastir," inspired by nature walks, on Kura Records.