{"id":136123,"date":"2023-05-16T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=136123"},"modified":"2023-05-31T20:24:12","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T03:24:12","slug":"dennis-cuylan-rings-of-juniper-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/dennis-cuylan-rings-of-juniper-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Deniz Cuylan Returns with More Brightly Colored Cinematic Abstractions on \u2018Rings of Juniper\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For years, Istanbul-born, L.A.\u2013based Deniz Cuylan has worked as a writer, dialogue editor, sound designer, Foley artist, and composer for film and television. The scores, including one about drug kingpin El Chapo and another about a woman being hunted by her family, pack plenty of jittery high drama\u2014and set an unlikely stage for his 2021 debut album, No Such Thing as Free Will<\/a><\/em>, a collection of evocative, atmospheric pastorals that painted pictures of Japanese hot springs and the \u201cPurple Plains of Utopia.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Deniz
Deniz Cuylan, Rings of Juniper (Hush Hush) <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later, he\u2019s back with even more brightly colored abstractions. The soundscapes on Rings of Juniper<\/em> are increasingly complex, their palettes more varied, their themes more ambitious. The title track starts with a cascade of notes from Cuylan\u2019s 2011 Thomas Norwood Santos nylon-string guitar, clear and resonant as a harp, with the quiet hum of orchestral strings rising in the background before fading into silence. That\u2019s when the sequence starts all over again, and each time it does, the guitar grows more out of sync with Greg Chudzik\u2019s bass, blurring in the twists of clarinet and piano, and gaining power until it resolves itself into a quiet, temporary repose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n