Polydimensional Analysis in ‘Polygons’: How Galya Bisengalieva Uncovers Kazakhstan Through Electroacousticism
The London composer’s ambient soundscapes are politically inflected in her 2023 release, Polygons, an electroacoustic album exploring how music can echo environmental catastrophes in her homeland, Kazakhstan.
Written By Zachary Bolash
Photo courtesy of Barbican
Galya Bisengalieva is a Kazakh musician and multimodal artist currently serving as the leader of London’s Contemporary Orchestra. Her work bridges the electronic and classical musical traditions by altering acoustic signal processing to produce music in the electroacoustic genre. Beyond the technicalities of her sound, Bisengalieva is a prominent activist, bringing attention to sociopolitical issues in Kazakhstan and, by extension, the greater Central Asian region through her discography. Her 2023 release, Polygons, aims the reticle at the Kazakh government, criticizing the state’s collusive sociopolitical order through spotlighting the travesties of nuclear testing at the Semipalatinsk Test Site.
The Semipalatinsk Test Site — fittingly known as the “Polygon” — was located in the Zhanasemey District of the Abai Region in Kazakhstan, and served as the Soviet Union’s principal testing site for nuclear materials. Soviet officials, however, used the site more as a nuclear playground rather than a space of controlled experimentation, leading to catastrophic health effects for local residents. Research has indicated that 80% of residents living within proximate regions experienced minisatellite mutations in their DNA and have developed shared chronic responses to the testing. Examples of these responses include increased proclivities for cardiovascular disease and the development of tumors.
Polygons serves as an ambient guide to not only the realities of the testing, but the legacies of the Soviet Union’s repressive rule over the people of Kazakhstan and the exigency for Kazakhstan to confront the contemporary state of Russia and hold it accountable for the health outcomes of its residents.
The first track of the album, “Alash-kala” is dazzlingly terrifying. Dark ambience and stringy violins create an atmosphere that encapsulates steppes of Central Asia: a formidable landscape marked with rolling hills, lush flatlands, and the thumping of various fauna. The track’s chilling violins and synthesizers imbue one with the feeling of coming across the original Semipalatinsk site, overcome with beauty but also a primordial fear of encountering unadulterated nature. The song introduces the listener to the sacrosanct essence of the once-untouched Sempatlisk region, fitting, as “Alash-kala” was the precolonial name of the Semipalatinsk testing site.
However, the purity Bisengalieva imparts to the region becomes perverse with the tracks “Chagan” and “Balapan.” “Chagan” introduces pulsating sounds throughout the track, impinging upon the ethereal violin melodies heard in “Alash-kala.” The repetitive noises symbolize the menial, industrial work conducted on these sites, as well as the extractive quality of the area. The violins crescendoing as synthesizers pulsate evoke the sense of something becoming impure through sustained exploitation. As the album explicitly details Bisengalieva’s sonic visitation of the Semipalatinsk site, this is likely to represent the region falling victim to the unethical practices of the then Soviet Union.
The ending track of Polygons, “Degelen,” encapsulates the present-day Sempatalisk region: a beautiful region corrupted by a colonial regime. Dark ambience intersects with staccato beats, creating a sound that feels like the perfect confluence of nature and machinery, fitting for a region under militant economic extraction from the Soviet Union. The track also conveys an equal sense of confusion, buoyed by a low-humming, ethereal ambience. It is in this ambience that we can draw parallels to the muddy choice that lies ahead for Kazakhstan: whether to continue cozying up to a power that suppressed its people in exchange for political clout, or to embrace its independence through not just national pride, but also a collective acceptance of trauma.
Polygons also serves as a broader statement of the Central Asian condition. Many of the themes explored in the album characterize the politically and culturally fraught relations with Central Asian countries and their former imperial ruler, Russia. While Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan may not have hosted exact replicas of the Sempatanlisk site, the two nations may find parallels in the Soviet Union's collectivization practices, which ultimately led to simple extraction, similar to the Sempatanlisk site. Moreover, because of their geography, these countries have to make similar choices about whether to hold Russia accountable for the rocky upbringings of these states. In sum, Gayla Bisengalieva’s Polygons can serve as a soundscape, not just for Kazakhstan, but for the entirety of Central Asia.
The “polygonal” story constructed by Bisengalieva is a rich, electroacoustic chronology of the Sempatalisk region, a chronology captured by experimenting with classical and electronic musical canons that exposes, but also stokes, a sense of wonder at the Kazakh state's political traumas and, potentially, its future. On Polygons, Bisengalieva demonstrates her prowess not only as a musician but also as a cross-generational storyteller unafraid to confront her home country’s confused history headlong.