Gemlike Flame (by Balamir Nazlıca)
The song ‘Gemlike’ was intended to be a pure love song.  It started off with the simple object of expressing ones true inner feelings to ones spouse. Although it was simpler in its task of composing, different from the other songs, the lyrics to Gemlike were written over a period of time. While writing I came across several books which were to become my reference points, and it would be meaningful to mention a few of them here. Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley and Neil Gaiman’s Stardust illustrated by Charles Vess were enormous help in fine-tuning my mind. The former being an essay and the latter a novel both were rather peculiar writings, which had a deep impact on this particular song. This is an attempt to explain how this song was written.
Gemlike’s melody was composed instantly. Transforming the inner passions to a meaningful melody happens in the moment. In other words, feeding your inner depths with harmonized melodies is an easier task. At least for me. But putting this in a written context so that it has a logical meaning to it is a more difficult task than one might imagine. Explaining yourself with words, due to the confined structure of lyric writing is a somewhat mind boggling experience. Both books mentioned above came to the rescue at this point.
The magic of the stars, galaxies, supernovas was, and continues to be, an endless area that has always haunted me. Needless to say the vastness of the galaxies and the stars has an epherical feel to it and while reasoning within this surreal context you are confined in the supernatural.  What made Gemlike’s lyric interesting was, before beginning the process of writing, I had a vision or a dreamlike abstract picture of a supernova in my mind. As we all know it, a supernova is a star that explodes causing high levels of luminosity throughout space. Right at the time I was grappling with all of this, I was also reading Neil Gaiman’s novel Stardust. The novel inspired me to repetitively envision stardust traveling through space and finding their way to my studio. Mixing these two words together I came to create in my mind a superstar, not in the sense that we know it, however.  A superstar of its own.A superstar that made no sense scientifically but corresponded to my mind’s visions. An entity of its own.
A superstar as we know it is a celebrity. But here, within the realm of Gemlike, it has a different meaning to it because it only seems to exist in my mind. But listeners and readers can take this form and make what they want of it. If it does exist, if it is real. The abstract is a deep and free world. It is a chaotic place. The probability of you observing one is slim. At this point, bringing the magical world of stars, supernovas and brilliant objects to this love song made sense. And by making my wife a superstar, I made her beam out across space providing her with the tool necessary to travel in the phantoms of the galaxy.
While I had found the chorus of the song, I needed an element that would bring it to the mundane planet. I needed to find an element that would cause such a tremendous visionary experience as my superstar. It had to be a comparison so that we could have a point of return to measure in our mind and make sense of these lyrics.
As mentioned above, during this period I ran across a book called The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. Huxley’s book was an experiment, carried out personally by him, where he acquired certain dosages of mescaline and recorded his experience. Heaven and Hell was a sequel to this. In his attempt to describe the effects of Mescaline he clearly implies how one can transcend into another realm of reality. Huxley attempts to give reason to his visionary experience. By different methods individuals would perceive an external world where the mind would fabricate a completely different contextual vision, place, location or reality. With this daunting experience Huxley comes to a better understanding of what other groups think about cosmological notions.
While reading this odd short essay I came across a paragraph in which, Huxley explains how different religions would use gemstones to try to explain what heaven looks like and the reasons of gemstones relative value. Huxley continues to give us different explanations of the value of gems and how they were used within different centuries for different purposes. Amongst these, what interested me the most was the use of gems transportive power. According to his essay, it is believed that gems have the power to transform the individuals mind to have a visionary experience that would transport you to the other existing worlds. A shuttle in itself. Observed long enough gemstones have the power to transport.
Real or not it made perfect sense to combine the gemstone into bursting stardust. This could have only been a gemlike flame. Once I had settled this the lyrics just poured out. The Gemlike song is a journey of its own. The lyrics are an attempt to catch the extraordinary with the mundane, merged to become a gem like flame.

Gemlike

Balamir Nazlıca (compositions, lyrics, vocals and artwork) 
Burcak Sait Daldal (Guitars, arrangement)
Emir Celt: Drums
Burak Irmak: Keys

MANAGEMENT & BOOKINGS : balamirnazlica@gmail.com

Balamir Nazlica released his first EP, In Light, in 2009 with Ventilation Label and gained a strong fan base globally. His debut album, Aftermath, was released by Topkapi Muzik in 2011 and considered one of the new rising stars of the Turkish music scene according to Cut Magazine. With Aftermath, Balamir managed to shoot Turkey’s first ever crowd sourced video project. In 2014, he released his second album, Wanted, with Topkapi Muzik and directed and filmed his first video to the track, ‘Baby Get Out’. He also began work on a video series titled Unconcealment. 

It would be best to describe the artist Balamir Nazlica as a true Jack-of-all-trades. Contrary to what is believed about creatures of this nature, he defies the term by being very good at all skills. In the mediums of music, video and photography he has produced impressive artwork by combining pragmatism with art and science.  

He has been mostly based out of Istanbul and recently moved to the USA. He is interested in and influenced by a wide range of topics from philosophy to sci-fi and romanticism. Balamir uses any medium to create that he finds readily at hand, whether it be songwriting, filming, photography or painting. He uses all the mediums as an extension of his vision. 


Gemlike

Soaked