A feature piece by Lance Peng on Inal Bilsel
With over two decades of experience in the music industry, Inal Bilsel has carved out a unique artistic identity—one that fuses music, visual arts and speculative narratives. A multifaceted composer, performer and educator, Inal’s work is a journey through contrasting worlds: fact and fiction, nostalgia and future dystopia, narrative and conceptual abstraction. His sound is influenced by science fiction, retro-futurism and musical hauntology, a genre that evokes the echoes of lost futures and fragmented memories. Whether through electronic compositions, orchestral pieces or immersive audio-visual performances, he pushes the boundaries of what music can communicate.
A Cyprus-born artist, Inal is best known in his hometown Nicosia for his electrifying Tales From The Future performances—audio-visual spectacles that transport audiences into cinematic, otherworldly experiences. His live performances have graced a range of festivals and venues, including Sonar Istanbul, Salon IKSV, Fengaros Reacts, Farma Projekt, Buffer Fringe, Urban Gorillas, Electric Cicadas and Maki Fest, among many others. Each of these performances serves as a portal into his ever-expanding sonic universe, blending layered electronic textures with visual storytelling.
Inal’s ability to weave together music and conceptual world-building is perhaps most evident in his acclaimed second album, Paradise Lost (2018, Epic Istanbul), and this album is more than just a collection of tracks—it is a self-contained narrative universe, reflecting his engagement with both composition and storytelling. Paradise Lost also became the foundation of his PhD thesis, Creating Small Worlds, in which he explored how nostalgia-driven concept albums construct immersive sonic landscapes.
Trained in music composition at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Eastern Mediterranean University, Inal has a portfolio spanning orchestral, chamber, electronic, contemporary and film music. His early success as a composer was marked by winning the grand prize at the Notion International Composition Competition in 2007, where his piece Nilay’s Dream was performed and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. However, it was his growing fascination with electronic synthesis, sound design and computer-aided composition that led him to redefine his creative direction. His debut album, A New Beginning (2009), marked his full embrace of electronic and experimental music, setting the stage for his future explorations.
Beyond his solo work, Inal has built an impressive career as a film composer, lending his sonic expertise to numerous short films, including A Mother’s Sonata and Free Fun by Fehmi Öztürk, The Hunt and Letters From Cyprus by Sholeh Jahrei and Kamil Saldun, as well as The Delivery and Random Attempts by Doğuş Özokutan and Vasvi Çiftçioğlu. His ability to craft evocative soundscapes makes him a sought-after collaborator in both cinematic and multimedia projects.
A passionate educator, Inal has taught music composition, sound design, and multimedia arts at institutions such as Eastern Mediterranean University, PERA School of Contemporary Dance, and Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD), where he currently serves as the Head of the Sound Arts and Design Department. His lectures cover a range of topics, from musical form and analysis to experimental composition techniques. He is dedicated to nurturing the next generation of musicians, encouraging them to think beyond conventional structures and explore sound as a multidimensional art form.
In addition to his teaching and composition work, Inal is an active participant in Cyprus’s experimental music scene, regularly collaborating with fellow musicians such as Ulaş Öğüç, Naz Atun, Mete Hatay, Öktem Emre, and Onur Kasapoğlu. Through projects like DeFacto Dreams, Meet The Family, Electric Journey, and Strange Sounds (and sights), he continues to push the boundaries of improvisation, performance and interactive sound design.
As an Epic Istanbul (Sony Music Turkey) artist, Inal Bilsel continues to redefine the intersection of music, memory and the future, crafting compositions that feel both eerily familiar and strikingly new, and whether in the concert hall, the classroom or the recording studio, his work carries forward the essence of the power of sound to transport, transform and transcend.
Website: https://www.inalbilsel.com/home
Projects: https://www.inalbilsel.com/projects
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