SHR4C007R~002 24104259 EPK

by

Alican Ozturk 24104259

SHR4C007R~002 Option 2: Electronic Press Kit Template

Task 1: Electronic Press Kit

Musical Inspirations

  • Yorushika
  • Eve
  • Tatsuya Kitani
  • TK from Ling Tosite Sigure
  • Polyphia
  • DECO*27
  • kessoku band
  • Origami Angel
  • CASIOPEA
  • cinema staff

Contacts

Alican Ozturk (artist name as ‘lokun’) is an up-and-coming artist bringing over the upbeat and crazy sounds of Japanese Rock all the way to the UK. He is a self-taught guitarist who takes his inspiration from many places and artists to bring something new to the table.

His Story

As a child, Alican was always fascinated with Japanese media. Growing up in England as half English and half Turkish, he never felt like he was someone who fit in or liked things other kids did; when they wanted to play football, he was playing on his Gameboy and Nintendo DS. From video games like Pokémon and Sonic: The Hedgehog, to anime such as Naruto and Bleach, his love for the media and music from Japan continued to grow and shape his creativity in ways that are unique and new in the world of rock music. Going into his pre-teen years, he discovered his love for Japanese Rock music itself, and one day decided to finally pick up the dusty acoustic guitar he found at a charity shop to try and play his favourite songs. 

A few years passed as Alican joined a few bands and got his first electric guitar – a Telecaster. In college, he pursued his passion for music by taking the Music Production BTEC course. This is where he began to fall in love with producing and mixing in the style of Japanese Rock. He would go on to pass the three-year course with the highest possible grade in 2022. 

Taking some time away from education, Alican spent most of his time outside of working on honing his skills as a guitarist, producer and mixing engineer, making and building connections in the local scene of Manchester with other musicians, artists and industry professionals. He would have the opportunity to work aside professional sound engineers within venues such as Factory 251 and Rebellion, two of the most popular and well-regarded music venues in the city. He sharpened his abilities to balance and mix a wide variety of genres of music, such as Metal, Punk, Classic Rock, Drum & Bass and much more.

Now, as a young adult enrolled as a student at the well-known music school of Leeds Conservatoire, he continues to build his ability to blend these sources of inspiration from his childhood and love for Japanese media with other genres and styles of music that surrounds him to form his own personal identity. Alican’s biggest dream is to be able to spread his inspiration, visions and unique musical essence around the world for all to enjoy, and he hopes that you will join him on his journey.

@lokunnnnn

Task 2: Supporting Commentary

The purpose for my EPK is to try and promote myself as a musician and the skillset that I have worked to achieve and currently possess. My main skillset I have wished to promote is my ability to play the guitar to a professional degree and use that to be able to shape my own unique style and identity as a guitarist and musician. Alongside that, I wanted to promote my abilities as a producer and mixing engineer. I have done this by outlining my experiences and achievements that I have gained through recent years of being in education to learn and hone my production abilities and through opportunities I have had in more professional settings, such as working in notable venues around Manchester as a sound engineer and with different musicians. This will help to show that I am someone who possesses versatility and that I can be used for multiple different roles, either as a musician, an engineer, a session player or as a songwriter.  In terms of structure for my intended audience, I have presented my skillset and achievements whilst also presenting what kind of person I am towards the consumer and potential clients that I may work with and establish a connection within the future. I believe I have achieved this by showcasing my own personal story and background within the EPK in terms of how I have come to be a musician and what has influenced me to reach the point I am currently at as one. I have included areas such as when I first picked up a guitar to ground myself with an endearing and nostalgic experience that humanizes me and brings me closer to the reader. This can establish a personal connection with the client that reads it, especially regarding the artists emotions. By bringing up the topics that I did in the earlier sections, it helps to establish meaning behind my motivations and musicianship. It can also aid to further cement my personal identity as a musician and guitarist and what helps me to stick out from the crowd. The one thing that an EPK and musician should strive to be is unique, and I believe that by going this in-depth on who I am – not just as a musician, but as a person, that is something that will absolutely leave a lasting impact on my audience. Regarding my personal interests, I have mentioned the types of media and entertainment that I would indulge in. This not only has helped to further form a connection with the reader by allowing them to get to know me personally, but it also serves to lead into what my inspirations are that aid to fuel my creativity in guitar playing, mixing and producing. I have also included a short list of my own personal inspirations and artists within both the genre I have mainly focused on promoting myself within and artists outside of that genre. This helps to further convey that whilst I am heavily inspired by a certain specific style of music, it is not the only area that serves to drive me as a creative and that there are other areas and genres of music that act as a piece towards my musical identity.  I have added an area at the bottom that finalises the EPK with a conclusion on my current position and occupation as a musician in education as this conveys that I am a person who still seeks to grow the skills that I possess and that I am dedicated to my path. I also thought it useful to highlight the fact that it is a conservatoire as this will allow the reader to understand that I am in a place that is not only highly regarded and up to standard in terms of the quality of musical education, but that I am in a place where inspiration and collaboration is easily accessible whenever I seek it, further allowing my growth as an artist. Furthermore, the mention of the conservatoire allows the reader to understand that I am also allowed access to essential amenities and resources that are needed to obtain the highest quality of results in my work. Additionally, the goal that I mentioned was something of quite a substantial feat which involved distributing and popularising my work all around the world. Whilst this may seem slightly ambitious or overzealous, this was done intentionally as it conveys to the reader and potential client that I am someone who takes pride in my work and will strive for only excellent and outstanding results. For contacts, I have added an e-mail for more formal and traditional means of communication and a link to a Discord profile which serves to act as the less formal and more modern mode of communication. Giving a variety of both I believe is essential to attract the most amount of work and opportunity, especially when regarding the style of music I make and promote and the general demographic it is for. Instead of including my own personal portraits and professional pictures taken with a camera, I have utilised a picture of myself that is drawn in an ‘anime’ style. This was done intentionally as the genre of music that I write is heavily influenced by Japanese media such as anime and video games, as mentioned with examples in the EPK. It is also drawn with slight stylistic referencing towards one of the artists mentioned in my ‘Musical Inspirations’ section, further cementing those influences in my work and potentially seeming familiar with the reader if they are familiar with them. Overall, these choices help to promote my artistic image cohesively with my inspirations and the genre they are from. Reflecting on my work, I would like to say that I am not fully satisfied as there are parts I would like to have added over time. This would include links to a Spotify account as I believe it is a more professional streaming service than SoundCloud and is also the more popular of the two, allowing for further reach with my audience and potentially more opportunities. To confirm this, I found some statistics in an article which states that in 2023, Soundcloud had 140 million users while Spotify had 551 million (SoundCloud Statistics and Facts, 2025).

I would also like to include slightly more eye-catching visuals via more advanced graphic design techniques such as usage of different fonts, background customisation, added layers of graphics and textures and mentions of how large my current digital audience would be to add to my achievements. A good example of this is in the article ‘How To Create A Successful Electronic Press Kit’ where an artist called Emei shows these elements in an eye-catching and fitting style for her music (Amuse).

Another example for an EPK that is more in line with my genre and audience would be by the Japanese Rock band Necry Talkie, who use their EPK to showcase their achievements, professional photography and most popular tracks both on Spotify and for TV (Lit.Link, n.d.).

These things seem to be quite standard in terms of EPK’s for my genre of music and are things that I will have to consider in the future, however being a 1st year student, I understand that these will come with time and effort. In terms of my financial and legal side of producing my EPK, I have made everything with the resources provided by Show on the Leeds Conservatoire website, meaning that I have not spent any money in producing this EPK, only using my personal computer and phone. The image I used for the EPK was one that was personally gifted to me by a friend and therefore bears no repercussions for its commercial use in any way. I have yet to distribute my music onto any other services that aren’t SoundCloud, therefore I have also spent no money there, however I do seek to utilise services like Spotify in the future for this after I have researched my preferred method of paid distribution. I will then also proceed to use services such as PRS and PPL to ensure that my music is copyrighted and trademarked to ensure I receive fair earnings. For now, SoundCloud is simply a means of having some of my work on a platform to present to people and clients and potentially gain a following before any sort of serious promotion. In the future, I also wish to utilise the service ‘Lit.Link’ (n.d.) for my EPK as opposed to Show as I find the style and formats to suit my overall needs more appropriate, especially considering it is a service that I already know artists from my genre use for their own EPKs. However, this does have an annual fee so that will have to be accounted for too.

For group research, I have not had many opportunities to partake in sessions within class, however I have done some research outside with peers that are experienced in creating their artist identity online. I have presented my ideas to them, and they have given me some ideas to create my current EPK, such as creating and linking a SoundCloud, a professional email for clients and work opportunities, and to use my genre and its uniqueness as much as possible.

They also did me the pleasure of sending me the EPK of a band that we are close with who are quite successful in terms of their influence, uniqueness and presentation, which helped me feel more comfortable to convey my unique selling points across in my own EPK.

Overall, considering my current position as a musician and 1st year student, I am somewhat satisfied with my EPK. There are many things that can be improved upon for the future, however I believe I have managed to get across who I am as an artist successfully to my audience and look forward to building upon that.

Bibliography

D’Souza, J (2025) SoundCloud Statistics and Facts (2025). Available online: https://electroiq.com/stats/soundcloud-statistics/#:~:text=SoundCloud%20Users%20The%20highest%20estimates%20were%20reported,in%202020%20and%20130%20million%20in%202021. [Accessed: 12/05/25].

Amuse (n.d.) How To Create A Successful Electronic Press Kit. Available online: https://www.amuse.io/en/content/how-to-create-a-successful-electronic-press-kit/ [Accessed: 08/05/25].

Lit.Link (n.d.) Lit.Link. Available online: https://lit.link/en [Accessed: 15/05/25].