From the Studio to the Stage:
A Conversation with ANTONÍ About Holding Tight Lightly
Interview: Ezgi Cenk
ANTONÍ recorded her debut album, Holding Tight Lightly, three or four years ago at Şen Bakkal Studio in Kadıköy, with Can Güngör as producer. Bringing folk-rooted songwriting together with jazz, chamber pop, and electronic sounds, the album is now returning to the neighbourhood with a performance at Fugamundi, just around the corner from the studio where it was recorded.
Interview: Ezgi Cenk
We spoke with ANTONÍ about the making of Holding Tight Lightly, her songwriting process, the unexpected details that found their way onto the album, and the new musical territory she is exploring with her second album.
Holding Tight Lightly was recorded at Şen Bakkal Studio in Kadıköy, and now you’re about to perform songs from it at Fugamundi, also in Kadıköy. How does it feel to bring these songs back to the place where they were recorded and share them with an audience there?
It feels exciting. I have huge respect for the Istanbul music scene, so getting to play a concert here feels like an honour. Many artists whom I love have emerged from this scene.
Coming back three or four years after we recorded at Şen Bakkal feels like a full-circle moment. It takes me back to the beginning of a very transformative time. This place, and most of all Can, who produced Holding Tight Lightly, shaped its sound and truly brought the songs to life. The album itself set me on a path towards who I am now and what I get to do with my life.
I’ve also learned that the making of an album doesn’t really end with its release. Since forming my band and playing our release show at naTo in Leipzig, we’ve sort of “made” the album again and again by arranging and rearranging it, and by interpreting it live. Every time we play, I try to reinvent the songs through my body, which has been an incredibly interesting and eye-opening experience so far.
Playing with my bandmate Einar is always a lot of fun, and he’s here too. So yeah, we’re really looking forward to it.
At what point in the process did the title Holding Tight Lightly emerge, and what does the phrase mean to you? How do you see the relationship between the title and the songs today? Has that relationship evolved?
Holding Tight Lightly was one of the last songs I wrote, when we had already made about two-thirds of the album. I remember coming across the phrase “holding on tightly, letting go lightly” and merging it into “holding tight lightly”, because I felt there was some truth in trying to do both at the same time.
It has remained relevant to me. Maybe I think about it a little less naively, or less idealistically, now. Sometimes it’s hard to find that
balance. Sometimes I cling to something and can’t let go, and that’s okay. I think it’s important to feel and accept that, too, rather than constantly trying to change everything about yourself.
But I still strive towards that balance, and I think it’s a good compass as long as you don’t impose it on yourself.
You’ve spoken before about collecting thoughts in notebooks and on your phone. I’m curious about what happens next: what is it about a passing phrase or image that makes it stay with you, and how do you sense that it might belong in a song?
It’s a very strange and powerful sensation that makes an idea evolve into a song. I find it hard to name what it actually is that makes me want to dedicate myself to a line, an image, or a fragment on the guitar in that way. But there is something, like a very distinct mood, and if it’s not there, I don’t write. Or I might write for practice, but not truly.
Sometimes song fragments appear seemingly out of nowhere and strike you with a moment of great clarity that calls you to inquire further. I don’t mean clarity in the sense of knowing all the answers. It might just be an intense feeling coming to the surface, or a sudden clarity about an unresolved question. And then songwriting gives you the tools to ask the right questions — again, not necessarily for them to be answered, but to become more aware of yourself.
I recently came across the idea of individuation and this paradox of becoming, over the course of your life, the person you somehow already were. I realised that songwriting has always been a way through which I move towards that kind of becoming. But it’s a mysterious process. Some parts of ourselves, especially our creative muscles, are mysterious, and maybe it’s good for them to remain that way.
Did any small, unplanned moments or details find their way onto the album? If so, is there one you’re especially glad you kept?
Some of the odd time signatures in New Arpeggio weren’t intentional.
When I wrote it, because of my lack of theoretical knowledge at the time, I worked in the wrong time signature in my DAW, which left empty spaces at the end of the chorus. I ended up filling them by chopping up the guitar and placing those fragments into the gaps. I think that probably gave Can the cue for the loud, “tossed-to-the-wind” drumming that comes in there, and now it’s one of my favourite parts.
You’ve said that the songs on your debut began as something you were writing purely for yourself, without plans to release them. Now that you’re working on a second album, does knowing that these new songs might eventually belong together change the way you write or the way you allow an idea to develop?
I hope not. It becomes increasingly challenging to disregard expectations — if there are any — and the business side of things and all the fuss around it. It can be a huge distraction, and there are about a million guides on the internet on how to write music according to the terms of the music industry, but frankly, I’m not interested in that. From a creative standpoint, I find this very boring.
From what I understand, the way the creative industries are structured nowadays really isn’t in artists' favour. If I didn’t even get to make music on my own terms, I could just stop doing it.
What motivates me about this second album is the idea of stepping into uncharted territory with a team I trust, exploring new sonic worlds for songs written from different moods and perspectives, maybe getting a little uncomfortable, and seeing what blossoms from it.
Following Holding Tight Lightly, where do you see “Salt Town” within this new phase of your work? Do you feel there is a connection between the song and the emerging world of your second album?
An intermezzo! It’s sort of in between worlds, I guess. I feel like the new album is pulling us in a different direction. At least I hope we’ll manage to challenge ourselves to do something new and explore different aspects of what we can create together.
If you could choose one place in Leipzig and one in Istanbul to listen to Holding Tight Lightly, where would they be? What is it about those places that feels in tune with the album?
In Leipzig, there are a few nice places, but my favourite was shown to me by someone very close to me. It’s a little park oasis behind the chess club, with the statue of a reading woman at its center. If you know, you know. :)
In Istanbul... listen to it on the islands. Heybeliada is my favourite one. There is something about looking at the never-ending skyline of this gigantic place that is both beautiful and terrifying — everything at once, similar to how our inner worlds can hold so many facets of feeling.
To marvel at the chaos from afar and then turn to the calm, wide sea matches the album's mood very well.