Photo by Berkay Akpolat
“Consciousness is experience itself, and it is therefore easy to miss the profound question staring us in the face in each moment: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious?” That’s author Annika Harris, from her best-selling book Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. The mystery of consciousness is not lost on artist and producer Ozoyo, who has created an entire EP devoted to his curiosities about life, consciousness, and communication. The music video for the EP’s title track, “Cosmic Planta”, was filmed by Berkay Akpolat, and it displays Ozoyo’s curious relationship with nature and music through vivid, colorful scenes filmed on Super 8.Reflecting on the EP, out today via Threefinger Records, Ozoyo explained, “Cosmic Planta is the story of an exoplanet in an unknown galaxy yet to be discovered. Its habitants are unique, miscellaneous, odd plants, ranging from the tiniest fungi to tallest trees. After the impact of a meteoroid these plants gained some exceptional features.” Ozoyo explained how he developed the storyline, channeling the mysteries that have always fascinated him. On this mythical exoplanet, “A liquid carried within that asteroid mutated the genetic structure of the flora and helped them to develop a peculiar nervous and sensory system. As a result, the greenery of this planet has evolved to communicate, move, interact within each other and even dance.” With Cosmic Planta, Ozoyo explores the possibility of all living organisms possessing the ability to share thoughts, ideas, and joy. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Ozoyo moved with his family to Stuttgart, Germany, when he was 10 years old. Spending his impressionable teenage years there, Ozoyo discovered a music scene that awoke his own talent and mobilized his creativity. “When I saw all the trains with graffiti and the b-boys at the train station in Stuttgart, I was just shocked and wanted to be like them. From breakdance, it came to graffiti, then to rap music, and at some point to making beats.” Istanbul and Stuttgart each introduced Ozoyo to new sounds and movements, influencing his production and experimentation in music, but, he told Noisey, the Earth itself has been his greatest muse. “Now I just hang out at home, in parks on the seaside, or in the woods. So the green areas all over the world influence me much more than certain country cultures,” he said. Tapping into the rich frequencies of the woods, water, and various life forms that share the planet, Ozoyo has materialized their signals through a collection of natural sounds. “I like to work with field recordings that I record myself, like manipulating water or bird sounds that I record outside, instead of using ready-made samples or drums,” he said. Ozoyo has been refining and perfecting the six tracks that make up Cosmic Planta across the last year and a half, but this concept is just one of many intricate, layered ideas he has imagined for his music. His discography is stacked with experimental and textured songs like “Planetarium,” and “Morning in the Forest.” Ozoyo is working on many projects at once, lending pieces of himself to each and arranging his curiosities, stories, and sounds intentionally in harmony with one another. His discography represents an artist that is experimenting with sensory, psychological, and human connection, crafting concepts based on his most fundamental fantasies about life and nature’s interconnectedness. “I know that we humans have only discovered a very small part of space, and I keep imagining what kind of creatures or planets there could be that we don't even notice,” he said. “I wish very much that we could discover more. Maybe we'll be lucky and some nice extraterrestrials will visit us at some point.”
Advertisement
