Galya Bisengalieva - Polygon Reflections

Kazakh-British composer Galya Bisengalieva revealed ‘Polygon’ for One Little Independent in the dark Autumn of 2023. Now, as Summer turns to Autumn 2025, Bisengalieva presents ‘Polygon Reflections’, a collaborative reimagining of the original with artists The Bug, Hatis Noit, KMRU, Balkhash Dreaming, Lucy Liyou, Aïsha Devi, Hinako Omori and Alva Noto. The release date is the anniversary of the first Soviet nuclear weapon test in Kazakhstan.

Like her 2020 debut album ‘Aralkum’, which explored the shrinking of the Aral Sea, Galya Bisengalieva’s follow-up ‘Polygon’ drew on themes from her native Kazakhstan. This time, she turned to the Semipalatinsk Test Site, known as The Polygon, where the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests between 1949 and 1989, producing more fallout than Chernobyl. Though labelled ‘uninhabited’ by Soviet authorities, the area was rich in Kazakh culture, home to poets, musicians and the revered writer Abai Quananbaiuly, as well as a diverse natural landscape.

Each track on ‘Polygon’ referenced locations within this haunting region; villages, landmarks and natural features. Now, with ‘Polygon Reflections’, Bisengalieva has turned her work over to a consortium of her closest contemporaries, to ask for their reflections.

The collaborative album reads even closer to a soundtrack with unique scenes, from The Bug’s ferocious mechanical machinations, to Hatis Noit’s incantations, KMRU’s multi- textured digital vistas, Lucy Liyou electro-acoustic piano study, Aïsha Devi’s dissociated cyber-electronica, Hinako Omori’s arpeggiated mediations, Balkhash Dreaming’s poetry intertwined with sampling archival recording from the 1930s, performed by Amre Kashaubayev, a musician who lived in the Semipalatinsk region (1888-1934), to Alva Noto’s microsampled click soundworld meeting Galya’s multifaceted compositions.