Saturday 30th July Free Entry

“Bell Lungs” is the moniker of Scottish-Turkish vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and creative facilitator Ceylan Hay.

Frequently touring solo pre-pandemic by train, ferry and bus, Ceylan has performed in Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA, including prestigious events such as Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2019, Supernormal 2019, Noise Garden 2019 and Festival of Endless Gratitude 2019. 

She was selected as Musician in Residence for Stranraer’s Unexpected Gardens project over summer 2022, and took part in the Creative Music Intensive residency with Australian Art Orchestra, hosted by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in June 2022. In collaboration with Aurora Engine, Ceylan was commissioned by BFI’s Curious to create a new live score for Maya Deren’s 1943 cult classic Meshes of the Afternoon which will tour in Scotland and Northern England in July 2022.

Her music takes a freewheeling, magpie attitude to ambient, noise, free improvisation, psychedelia, jazz,  minimalism and folk, creating subtly shifting sound worlds drawing on natural cycles, environmental disaster and the microcosmic aspects of relationships.  Instrument collecting has been a passion of Ceylan’s for the past decade, and she plays a startling number of instruments, integrating vocals, strings, keys, tuned percussion and woodwinds into lushly textured layers and loops.

Ceylan released 3 EPs in “Allsorts of Oddfellows” 2020, “Wolves Behind Us” 2019 (limited edition lathe cut – now sold out) and “Phosphodendrophobia” 2018 (limited edition cassette tape, sold out). Her kaleidoscopic vocals were deemed “elemental” by cult arts critic David Keenan of The Wire, and her 2nd EP was described as “genius…or as pretty damned close to that elusive quality that you can get without having yet passed the test of time…” by Terrascope.