Formed in 2019, Ductape has recently taken off. The Turkish duo, comprising singer and keyboardist Çağla Güleray and multi-instrumentalist Furkan Güleray – who has just moved to Strasbourg after living in Istanbul and then Ankara – is part of a new gothic scene seeking to reconnect with a more impetuous style of music following the coldwave revival of the 2010s. Right from their debut album, Ductape have blown us away with their catchy, haunting hits, offering a brand of goth-rock with a more intricate structure than most bands in the genre. Let’s say it straight away: we love it!
Released in September this year, Faded Flowers is already the duo’s fourth album. So who are these faded flowers to whom Ductape has dedicated their new album? The cover artwork provides a telling clue: they are human beings. For Ductape, humanity is a field of faded flowers – individuals worn down by crumbling systems that impose monotony, isolation, forced identities and rigid expectations upon them, inflicting a sense of loneliness even whilst we are surrounded by people. It is the desire to escape this world of controls and illusions that inspires Ductape on this album.
Throughout Faded Flowers, we dance as we seek to extricate ourselves from suffocating ruins. The bass and reverb naturally take on overwhelming proportions, the drum machine is snarling, and the synth pads are heavy with melancholy. But here’s the thing: Ductape has no intention of letting itself be numbed by neurasthenia – this is no time for that when so many flowers have already fallen. Quite the contrary: the duo’s music is alive and struggling; it bursts forth through the accelerating tempo, the soaring synths and, above all, the vocals; whether screaming out despair or seeking an escape, the power is there and sweeps us away. The formula isn’t unique, but the band has a prodigious sense of rhythm and Çağla Güleray’s vocals, beautiful in their painful energy.
So we gladly immerse ourselves in the dark and oppressive world of this album, if only to find, deep down, the energy to rise again. We love Faded Flowers all the more because the ten tracks are varied, all solid and carefully arranged to hold our attention – the more straightforward ones in the first third of the album, the more experimental ones in the middle, and those with a slower tempo and a more bittersweet tone towards the end.
Once again, there are some unmissable hits: Fine is one of them, telling us of the sense of well-being one can paradoxically feel during a dizzying fall where pretences vanish; its haunting chorus immediately takes hold of you; it is almost rivalled by the following track, Obscure, or later by the harrowing D.E.R.T., which explores loneliness and despair amidst faceless societies. We are just as struck, yet even more surprised, by Velvet Dawn, a track torn apart by its guitar, whilst Çağla Güleray makes us realise that in pain and despair, the only option is to flee in order to be reborn. We’re also intrigued by Sad Gravity; its blend of acoustic guitar and electronic loops is disconcerting yet pleasing. The album concludes beautifully with the melancholic resignation of Last Dance, which, despite its slower tempo, nonetheless maintains an effective rhythm.
Faded Flowers is yet another triumph for Ductape. The band has successfully captured the emotions that drive them and, once again, powerfully translated them into music. There’s no need to compare this album with its predecessors: the duo continues on its path with the same confidence and talent. We can only hope to see Ductape make their mark on the goth scene for a long time to come.
