An afternoon with kirpi

kirpi is a three-piece band that's spent the last two years in İstanbul's basements. We made our first tee with them; they came straight from rehearsal, still sweaty, two of them holding half-finished toasts.

An argument started the second we sat down: print on the front or the back? The drummer wanted it loud and up front; the singer wanted the opposite. Half an hour later we agreed on neither — a tiny crest on the left chest, and on the back, just a date.

That date is the night they first played. "Nobody needs to know," the singer said, "the ones who know is enough." That's the whole thing, really: a tee is a thing you love, walking around on you. Like a password — the right person nods when they catch it.

For the band, merch is a way to survive in a world where they can't sell records. But it's more than that. "The show ends, the lights come on, everyone scatters," the bassist says. "The tee stays. It keeps playing, even in the washing machine."

We kept the print small and the label large. We chose heavy cotton so it wouldn't give up by the third wash. They wanted it that way too — to be heard without shouting, to come cheap without looking cheap.

On the way out the drummer turned around: "Next time, a hoodie?" We made it. The date on the back of HD-03 is still that same night.