Ductape
Faded Flowers
Swiss Dark Nights
Turkish duo Ductape have been gathering a following on the basis of a steady stream of singles and albums, in a very of the moment sound. More than anything, the duo of Çağla Güleray and Furkan Güleray have found a style that sits between the gloomy darkwave of She Past Away and the more light fast-moving quirky post-punk that we’ve come to associate with Molchat Doma and their ilk, with a touch of modern electro-darkwave for taste. And while their latest LP Faded Flowers is certainly very au courant in terms of the songwriting and performances, there’s also no denying that the band have a talent for it.
Listening to cuts like “Figures” or “Gölgesiz” should give a good idea of Ductape at their most straightforward; there’s a strong propulsive bassline backed by stiff kicks and gated snares, plenty of tremelo’d guitar lines and the charismatic vocals of Güleray, who imbues her low moans and whoas with plenty of muscle. It’s a sound the band never stray too far from, but keep fairly fluid, adding in some synth leads (as on the zippy “Delilik”) or touches of other styles (the italo-infused intro of “Burn”) to taste. And while the record does have a certain sameyness to it, it’s fast-moving and has enough switch-ups to keep things moving, such as placing the occasional combo-breaker like the oompah-cabaret stylings of “Velvet Dawn” into the middle of the album.
That said, the band’s bag of tricks has its limits, and multiple listens will show some of their weaker tendencies. A big one would be their general production sensibility: the bass and guitar sounds don’t vary much, their drum programming leans on eighties drum machine toms for fills to the point of distraction, and Güleray, for her confidence and power always sits in the same place in the mix, always up front, never varying in dynamics or range. To that point, these songs are often short of an actually memorable hook, usually relying on simple repeated keyboard licks or a simple refrain to fill the role. The fact is that even on multiple listens songs will tend to melt into one another, with only a few really standing out by virtue of having a vastly different tempo or arrangement. “Sad Gravity” is perhaps the most interesting song simply by virtue of using some more fully-fleshed out electronics and touches of spanish guitar.
You can see why folks would enjoy a record like Faded Flowers, it’s got a sound with proven appeal, performed expertly and with enough verve to wallpaper its musical shortcomings. Having it on is never unpleasant, and it’ll no doubt have folks dancing at your local goth club, but there’s simply not enough substance here to rise above perfectly fine. Ductape are a band that probably have a really good record in them, and it’ll be interesting to see how they get there from here.
