I’m on my bike, on my way to meet Güner Künier for our interview, when I listen to Yaramaz once more. It feels like the perfect soundtrack: The brightness of much-needed late-winter sunshine in my face, Kreuzberg’s gritty charm around me, the distorted, propulsive sounds in my ears. Not surprisingly, I arrived early, as the high-energy music made me cycle much faster than I normally would.
Yaramaz is Güner Künier‘s second album, a continuation of her acclaimed musical journey: cool, noisy post-punk filled with stoic synths and drums. The album is probably Güner’s most dynamic and energetic work to date. Despite all the distortion and electronic elements, the artist hasn’t lost her organic flow of sound. And she once again proves how well the Turkish language fits into it.
Güner was born in İzmir, Turkey, but moved to Flensburg, Germany when she was three years old. Her newest album is a tale about her upbringing and the never-ending quest for identity. “Yaramaz” is a Turkish word that roughly translates as “good-for-nothing” and is often used to describe rebellious children. Güner still identifies with the term:
“I often feel that I don’t fit in, that I don’t fulfil the role expected of me by my family, my culture or society. I am late in life, no marriage, no children. It kept coming up, and I began questioning, ‘Isn’t it mad that we use it on children? I didn’t choose to be seen that way, but I am. Accepting that was empowering. Now, I do things my way and live by my values.”
Release of Emotions
“It is only in the last two or three years that I have really started to deal with my heritage instead of pushing it away,” Güner Künier tells me. It was a journey on a bumpy road, one she is still hesitant to talk about. During that time, she was listening to old Turkish records—some she had found in her mother’s basement—by artists like Barış Manço and Cem Karaca. At the same time, she began weaving the Turkish language into her own music. “I started experimenting with it on a whim, but it immediately felt right and had a flow to it. So I kept doing it. Now some of them are my favourite songs, it’s crazy.”
Güner grew up in a household filled with Turkish alternative pop, but it was the likes of Sonic Youth and Patti Smith that really shaped her musical foundation. She started playing guitar at the age of ten and had her first band at thirteen, performing at school events. “It was my salvation growing up. My teenage years were pretty tough. As soon as I developed from a child into a feminine being, I was given strict boundaries and there were a lot of things I wasn’t allowed to do. I obeyed all the rules. Except for concerts, bands, and music, I did that somewhat secretly. There I could release all my anger and sadness”. Accepting, appreciating, or overcoming one’s past is never easy, let alone sharing it publicly. “I think it is important to talk openly about my experiences, I think a lot of Turkish girls are going through the same thing.”
Anger Must Go Somewhere
A journey that never ends: “Music is still a very important tool for me to deal with my emotions. Anger, for example, I find very complicated, I often don’t know how to deal with it. But with my music, I can work with it and release it. In general, I think that when I make music, I go deeper emotionally than I can even comprehend intellectually”. Güner Künier tells me that it sometimes takes months before she realises what experiences or emotions she has processed in her music. And the word anger keeps coming up in our conversation. “My theme for the last three months or so has been anger. For me, it often turns into sadness and I get very emotional, I start to cry. But actually, anger can be a positive energy that drives you and shows you your limits”. I then ask her if anger makes for better music. “Better, I don’t know. But maybe more courageous? There is certainly a lot of energy in anger that can lead to something very raw and unpolished, and I like that.”
What Matters
Another word I associate with Güner and her artistic work is emancipation. She tells me it has been a long process for her, not only musically but in her whole life. And yet it is difficult to define something between freedom, security and independence. Steps in a journey that was and still is neither linear nor in one direction: perhaps her secret band projects, probably her choice of a “good subject to study” that promised financial freedom, certainly her choice of putting all her energy into creating art.
“It would probably have been easier just to live by the rules of my family, my cultural background, or society as a whole. But I wouldn’t be any happier. Still, it feels like I have to fight these little battles all the time and remind myself that it is important to do so.”
Sounds exhausting, right? But we can all relate to those battles, as well as those moments when everything suddenly falls into place. “I have a lot of insecurities, but there are always moments when I feel empowered and strong and just really good. Like when I do a gig, everything goes well, I meet amazing people, they buy my records… When I drive home the next day, I feel so free and grateful that I stuck with it.”
From Solo to Band – And Why This Time is Different
It is perhaps not surprising that songwriting is an intimate process and a place of solitude for Güner Künier. Something the artist feels works best when she is on her own terms and in her own time. Throughout her teenage years until a few years ago, she was always playing in bands. But in the end, she found that she always had to compromise or even diminish her visions and ambitions. Güner wanted more, started experimenting on her own, and people picked up on it. “I had to decide, I couldn’t do both [a solo project and being in a band]. I was getting more and more requests for my solo project, so I decided to go all in. And I realised that it works very well for me to be completely self-determined. It also means more responsibility, more work, more organisational stuff – but in the end I found a really good flow for myself where I don’t feel slowed down.”
Fast-forward to today, and after a few years as a soloist, you might see her on stage accompanied by the two fellow musicians Erin Violet and Stéphanie Morin. “I reached my limits when I was doing everything alone. I felt like one of those buskers with a drum on their back and a harmonica around their neck, and I wanted to be more dynamic and free on stage. To be able to connect more and also sing more. And it [having a band] works beautifully, I fucking love it.”
It is no coincidence that Güner is joined by two female-identifying musicians – especially when a band without cis men is still a rarity in any genre, including punk. “I really think that there should be people of all genders on stage. With every project where I work with new people, I always keep that in mind. I find it terribly boring to see a group of only cis men on stage. Personally, I always find performances by FLINTA* musicians or mixed groups much more entertaining. When I’m looking for people to work with, I don’t even care how technically advanced they are on their instruments, that’s what rehearsals are for. I care much more about a good interpersonal relationship.”
A Choice Made Every Day
Speaking of time and energy, for many artists, the question of choosing art as a career is a major internal debate, and Güner Künier is no stranger to it. She vividly remembers the time when she made that decision for herself: “I read Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’ for the first time, which had a huge impact on me. I decided to quit my secure job and really go for it. A lot of people told me not to, but I felt it was all or nothing.” It’s a choice the artist makes every day. “Most days I’m happy. But some mornings, I wake up broke, questioning everything. I have to remind myself why I’m doing this—music and books help.”
Making the decision is one thing, actually thriving in the competitive music industry is another. If she had one tip for aspiring musicians, it would be to connect with like-minded people and build communities. “For me, it never felt like this ‘music industry’, more like a bunch of people sticking together, connected by a passion for music and culture, like a group of friends, where people organise concerts, have labels, make posters. Maybe it is because I am still very independent and quote-unquote underground, but I feel a lot of solidarity.” It is certainly not a matter of course, perhaps even out of the ordinary, that an artist does not go into a rant when the term music industry is mentioned. It is hard to say whether Güner has been lucky so far, more resilient or making better choices. But it certainly doesn’t hurt that she’s aware of which spaces to enter and that she seeks out like-minded people.
“There are so many great bands and people out there. Connecting with them and surrounding yourself with people who have similar visions or lifestyles really helps to feel less alone in your career choices and life in general.”
A Message to Her Younger Self – And to Us All
And even though Güner Künier didn’t mention it herself, I can only imagine how empowering and important it must feel to put out an album like Yaramaz. Given that the record is so closely tied to her upbringing, I asked her which song she would choose to send to her younger self. “I don’t think I’d want to send a clear message, but rather show how far I’ve come. So I’d probably choose my favourite song, but that changes all the time. I’d probably go for ‘Yanıma Yat’ because it might be the song with the most variety.”
Little Güner may not be able to listen to Yaramaz, but you can and should. And if you haven’t already, take the advice of the artist herself: “If you’re listening to it for the first time, put it on when you’re outside, maybe when you’re going for a walk. It’s not the kind of album you play at home with the candles on. You have to be in motion.”
Yaramaz is released on March 21, 2025, on the label Flirt 99. Stay up to date with Güner Künier via her Instagram. On May 15, the artist will play her release show at Kantine am Berghain in Berlin.