“I start the set with a beautiful intro, an intriguing conversation about dreams and reality, which is inviting the listeners to a lucid journey of soundscapes. It’s a deep, dark, and emotive set that picks up some heat and tempo halfway through where I also included my new track ‘Juno’, coming soon on Stil Vor Talent’s special anniversary compilation. For the first time I used my own voice in a track, and I feel it evokes the mood I wanted to create with this podcast too. I picked tracks that I really find interesting and thought-provoking, tracks with depth and an edge to them. At the end, the energy is slowly brought down where I close the session with the same conversation I started it with, reminding the listener that this past hour was maybe a simulation or another life… I hope the music I picked and mixed evokes curiosity for different states of consciousness and makes the listener wonder about what turns our super similar bio-chemical machines into conscious beings. I believe this kind of soul searching is an immense catalyst to find one’s own truth. And music has the power to help that – Elif”
With huge early success as an international music blogger, fresh talent Istanbul-born Elif covered all the main festivals as a writer until, after teaching herself music production and mixing, she swapped ligging for gigging four years ago as a DJ. As a producer, her first release on Anjunadeep (2019) made her an instant favourite, and her Anjunadeep ‘Edition’ mixes are always a huge success. She recently played their #Anjunaunlocked Twitch stream, as well as crafting an epic lockdown set for Desert Hearts’ City Hearts virtual festival which made the Twitch main page and became the talk of towns everywhere. Also during lockdown she’s written new material – soon to drop on Stil Vor Talent and her debut EP on A Tribe Called Kotori– and reached her listeners’ hearts with livestreams both melodic and profound.
Before lockdown, already a familiar figure at festivals worldwide with an incredible resume of experience and expertise (of which more below), Elif had become a non-stop nomadic performer at the likes of Burning Man, The Monastery Festival, Anjunadeep Explorations, ADE, Kater Blau, The Gardens of Babylon and Flying Circus parties, Tulum, Montreal, Ukraine, Amsterdam… be it a dark club or a sunny beach, she brings heart, variety, passion and life-enhancing vibes to her listeners.
‘Music is my home. Music is my language. Music is my medicine.’
All this, after a degree in Architecture, a spell working as an architect in Santiago de Chile, and a gap year which saw her already buzzing Twitter and Insta social media life blossom into full blogger ‘influencer’ status before the term was even invented. Elif wrote about her passions, music and travel, hitting up global events like Glastonbury (‘my yearly pilgrimage 3 years in a row’), Fusion, Reading, and becoming an oft-invited guest at Coachella, SXM, Sziget, writing up her experiences for landlocked music fans back home and even launching and managing a new Turkish indie band. Clearly her social media chops remained sharp, as in 2018 she delivered a TEDX talk on being a female role model in Turkey, obtaining 39k views on YouTube.
‘I am a music storyteller. My nerd brain learns about music theory and production, when I can go days and nights without sleep and just work, because I can only enjoy success If I really earned it. This way I have a real and inspiring story to tell. I know from a very young age what it means to be followed and loved by many people. It’s very powerful and I want to use this power for our planet, for a better society, for freedom, for equality.’
01. Spektre – Foreword
02. LADS – Above Snakes
03. Valiete – Whitechapel
04. Sean & Dee – Kaleidoscope (Lily Pita Remix)
05. Christopher Schwarzwalder – Tropo (Madmotormiquel Remix)
06. George Ledakis, Xiasou – Red Dunes (Maetim Remix)
07. Far & High – Overflow
08. Elif – Juno
09. Alex Medina – Entre Dos Mares
10. NHII – Yofuke no niwa
11. DJ Hell – Wild At Heart
12. DJ Paul (AR) – Lost Soul (Dynacom & Bodai Ambient Remix)
13. Spektre – Foreword
