In "Sleepwalkers", Ekin Fil crafts a world as thick and ethereal as fog, where emotion feels less like a choice and more like a medium she breathes and shapes. Like a spectral encounter in a Lynchian fever dream, Ekin’s compositions hover between melancholy and something too profound for language. Here, words are swallowed by layers of drone and reverb, and time melts, leaving listeners suspended in an unhurried drift of sound.

With her distinctly hushed vocal presence, this Istanbul-based Turlkish sound artist - known offstage as Ekin Üzeltüzenci - has drawn apt comparisons to Elisabeth Fraser and Carla dal Forno, yet her sound remains uniquely hers: haunting, intimate, and laced with a paradoxical warmth. Her opener, “Sonuna Kadar”, barely lets the listener touch ground before “Stone Cold” introduces a slow-burn intensity, with textures recalling Tim Hecker’s noise-ambient finesse. Midway through, the title track, “Sleepwalkers”, pulses with a rhythmic gravity, beckoning like a far-off memory that you almost recognize but can’t quite place.

Ekin’s seven albums with The Helen Scarsdale Agency have seen her evolve from fragmented shoegaze into an even more introspective form of drone-pop - one as fragile as it is resolute. "Sleepwalkers" continues this trajectory with a certain quiet assurance, each piece slowly unspooling a story that feels both intensely personal and achingly universal. The final track, “Gone Gone”, stretches to over ten minutes, echoing with a sense of haunting finality that might linger in the listener’s bones.

"Sleepwalkers" is not an album for the casual listener; rather, it is a slow dive into emotional shadowlands, a mournful but beautiful drift for those unafraid to wander through haze and half-formed memories. Recommended for the nighttime traveler, for those who find solace in the pensive drone and reverb where Ekin Fil's delicate world lives and breathes.