Irem Bekter’s “Miscommunication (Lost In Transmission)” doesn’t ease you in—it drops you straight into the middle of something already unraveling. Voices overlap, rhythms pull in different directions, and meaning feels just out of reach. It’s disorienting at first, but that’s the point: Bekter isn’t interested in clarity so much as the feeling of almost understanding.
Built on a Turkish folk pulse that loops like a half-remembered phrase, the track stretches outward into a multilingual swirl. English and French vocals drift through the mix, while a Spanish rap from Akawui cuts across the grain, sharp and insistent. None of it fully locks together, and yet it moves with a strange, internal logic.
Bekter, who has lived across Istanbul, England, Argentina, and now Montréal, draws on that sense of displacement as a creative engine. Her music has always carried a global sensibility, but here it feels more fragmented—less about blending influences and more about letting them coexist without resolution.
The production, arranged by Jean Massicotte, leans into texture over structure. Guitar lines from Yves Desrosiers flicker in and out, while percussion from Olivier Bussières and Lu Horta creates a shifting rhythmic bed. There’s a looseness to it, but also a quiet control, like the track could fall apart at any moment but never quite does.
There are echoes of Lhasa de Sela in the emotional undercurrent, and the cinematic sprawl of Beirut in its arrangement, but Bekter resists easy comparison. Her voice—both literal and artistic—remains singular, even as it gets lost among the others.
By the time the track resolves (or rather, refuses to), you’re left sitting in that ambiguity. “Miscommunication (Lost In Transmission)” doesn’t offer answers or closure. Instead, it invites you to linger in the gaps—to find meaning not in what’s said, but in what slips through.
“With ‘Miscommunication (Lost In Transmission),’ Irem captures the beauty and humour in human connection, where words flow freely but meaning can slip through the cracks. It’s playful, rhythmic, and utterly distinctive, showcasing her unique ability to blend cultures, languages, and musical traditions into something wholly original,” – music publicist Danielle Holian, Decent Music PR