I don't like Turkish music, or do I?

is this baris k's mix II?
http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists/433

and what's the 3 hur-el pun?

Right, I googled.

They are three brothers with the name Hurel. Omlettes on the u.

In Turkish, hür = "free" & el = "people/tribe"

so it's like a pun on their surname. 3 Free People as well as 3 Hürel brothers.

Not much of a pun, I know, but, erm.

Not sure if that's mix I or II - the song titles look familiar, but that might be because I've been listening to so much of this stuff.

i've been listening to 3 hur-el for like ten years now, i had no idea. I LEARNED SOMETHING!

yay! So trying to learn Turkish has actually been good for something - apart from the haggling for elektrosazzes I am expecting to have to do in Istanbul.

ERKIN KORAY ERKIN KORAY ERKIN KORAY

He is so awesome words cannot express it.

Seconding Rocket Scientist's praise for Aynur Doğan (aka just Aynur) a few years back. I discovered her through the Crossing the Bridge documentary a few years ago. Technically Kurdish music, but by an Istanbul artist and her ensemble. The albums Keçe Kurdan (2004) and Nûpel (2005) are findable online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gac33Zdaiwk

On the offbeat side, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Baba Zula, a self-described "Turkish psychebelly" band, produced by dubmeister Mad Professor. YMMV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq7erqOtNcc

Ha ha, I actually have some Baba Zula on a compilation of contemporary Turkish dance music - a song called Zaniye Oyun Havasi (which I think is actually better than the clip there.)

Regrettable lad's magazine cover aside, I thought this widely available dance comp was pretty good (probably the best of this Petrol label series):

http://www.petrolexotic.com/catalog/thumbnail.php?img=images/SCM_istanbul_cover.jpg

This one:

http://www.petrolexotic.com/catalog/images/SCM_istanbul_cover.jpg
The comp's page at label

Oh dear. This is one of the ones I got:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vmHeRapsL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Been slowly trying to make my way through the back catalogue of the artists I liked. Thing is the one I liked best (Harem) went back and forth between amazing darjouka jams and frankly regrettable trance remixes with an annoying girl squeaking "watch me belly dance!!!" in between orgasm noises. Um, no.

Selda is the truth! Her 1976 release is an instant classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1GRirCTLQ0

http://eardrummer.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/ersen-portrait.jpg

Finders Keepers do a pretty good comp of this guy's stuff. Ersen.

Yeah, I have that Ersen comp. It's really great stuff.

But still... I don't love him quite as much as I love Erkin Koray. Elektronik Turkuler really is just something so incredibly special.

Also - to reiterate. SELDA. Oh yes.

I'm going to have to try harder with these, aren't I?

BUNALIM(/BUNALIMLAR/GRUP BUNALIM), dudes.

and if you like ersen, the sakir oner gunhan link i posted a while back still works and is sorta similar. and some of cem karaca's stuff is pretty nuts, like aci doktor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyimZuXwALM

I think Bunlalimlar had their own thread is why no one brought them up here?

What I really want to hear more of is the Erkin Koray / Grup Bunalim COSMIC GLAM PSYCH project Ter which their record company put the kabosh on for being too "far out".

Mark G, if you're not feeling the Koray love, then watch that video above - Cemalim. I think that might be his best - or at least his most accessible.

I ordered an Anatolian Invasion t-shirt from Finders Keepers, but lord knows when I'll ever get it, what with the postal strikes and backlogs and all. :-(

i think ter only had the one 7"? i mean, damn, i hope there's more in a vault somewhere just waiting to be discovered...

Yeah, there's that one song on the Hava Nargila compilation which just makes them sound like they would have been AMAZING had they done an LP. I hold out hope that in some secret record company vault somewhere there exist demos that made A&R guys hair fall out or something. But it probably would have surfaced by now, had it existed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIYIXyvyq3s

That is TEH AWESOME!!! Presume it's the other side of the single with the one I know?? :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf27dRbq8Dc

Kate: I liked the "Genlik" Monkey one, but didn't have the time to sit around listening, and the Selda got short shrift at the time.

Still, I have time. Or, I will have, at some point in my life, who knows???

I'm enjoying the Erkin Koray video posted upthread. I came back to check out all the stuff people have been posting here over the last year or however long it's been. I still don't really click with the more classical end of Turkish music, from what I've heard anyway, but that may be all the more reason to check out this other material where the turquianidad (that's bogus Spanish, incidentally, not bogus Turkish) gets twisted into new arabesques. Also, I think some of this Turkish stuff under discussion was minimal techno, which I'm suddenly curious about since my conversion to minimal techno (or rather, since I found out I liked the new Pantha du Prince anyway). More later. Downloading something or other obscure off a blog link from this thread as well.

I have no recollection of either listening to or posting the links for those Aynur Doğan mp3s (nor do I have any recollection of her name), but they are not bad. My favorite thing on this thread is probably that Erin Koray video way upthread. Some of the mixes people have linked too are just mixed (ahaha).

And I must have read about Turkish minimal techno in some comments Masonic Boom made elsewhere.

I thought I had mentioned Seyfettin Sucu, who I do like to some extent, on this thread. I only have one of his cassettes, bought without any clue as to who he was (aside from a Turkish singer), but there's a lot of music by him on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1fN_NGNLV4

Oh, hey, there (in the video) is the cover for the cassette I have, I think: Bulbul Oter.

More. . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg19YJSwA94

That second one is very vocals-oriented, sorry. Not really my cup of tea. I generally like the ones that are heavy on electric bazouk/guitar.

I could swear I posted at least once on ILM about Seyfettin Sucu, but I can find nothing. Maybe it was a different board or a newsgroup.

Found it. I had two letters wrong in his first name.

Clicked on the second Sucu video you posted and I like both the cool sounding "bazouk/guitar" and the vocals. Vocals like this, like other middle-eastern ones I've heard, and those on Youssou NDour's Egypt, also remind me of certain Jewish cantors i've heard in synagogues. The ethnological similarity is interesting. I also want to say the vocals feel "bluesy" but that is kind of as wrong as saying certain Malian things sound bluesy when it is likely more the other way around.

There are definitely connecting threads there. I don't have the terminology for it, or the knowledge for it (for that matter), but I tend to think of middle eastern vocals on a spectrum. I have to admit that I tend to prefer what to me is the less harsh end of that spectrum. I would put a lot of the traditional Turkish vocal styles on one side, along with Syrian classical vocals, classical Iraqi vocals, and the vocal styles that seem to have been more popular much earlier in the 20th century in Egypt and maybe the Arabian peninsula, and maybe also cantorial vocals (though I'm not all that familiar with that sound); all of which are not so far removed at times from qawali to my ears. I tend to prefer the somewhat smoother sound that became popular in Egypt (with singers like Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Farid el Atrache, and later Abdel Halim Hafez) and the Gulf (a good contemporary example being Mohamed Abdo) at a later point. But I don't know enough to know whether that sound was there all along and the different sounds went in and out of style. I'm also not quite sure how to fit female singers into this. Oum Kalthoum, for instance, to me straddles the line between the two extremes I'm talking about here. (I'm attempting to do cross-cultural comparisons here without being an expert in even one of these national cultures. So I admit this may be mostly bullshit.)

Diamanda Galas always has intriguing things to say about the connections you were bringing up:

DIAMANDA: Interestingly enough, since 9/11, a lot of people coming from the Middle East are saying there would be no blues if there were no muezzin singing, and I said, “Well, you know, the reason I won’t argue with that is that music comes from Byzantium, from the mixture of all these cultures in the Middle East, including Anatolia, Turkey, Greece.” Where did the music of Islam come from? Well, it came from the Arabs, originally. Who did the Arabs get it from? The Arabs took it from the Greeks. They all changed music together in that melting pot of the Black Sea and Egypt and Turkey; in all those Arab countries, there was this exchange of music. So you have this bending of the tones, and you don’t just have a five-note scale—what is that? All these taqsims and the makams, all these scales.

And that is what I hear when I listen to most interesting blues music, which I feel is from Somalia and Ethiopia right now, because they have to get up there and be really good qaraami singers—the improvised music of that whole part of the world—and then they have to be pop singers and blues singers, too. So they get up and they start the solo with the qaraami, then they go into the song, and they go back into the qaraami. The qaraami is sung by church singers also. But these are real singers—I hear it and I think about where the blues is, what the Americans have done to it since then, which is just: repeat.

ARTHUR: Though they seem to specialize in it, that overly reverent regard for musical genres’ classic forms—stylizing them till they petrify hard enough to put them up on museum shelves—is not an exclusively American problem.

DIAMANDA: But when people try to get into this ethnic purity thing, like with Wynton Marsalis or Stanley Crouch, it’s the same thing that people do when they think about Armenian music—“Well, this scale or sound here is probably Turkish.” And I say, “How do you know if it’s Turkish or not?”

ARTHUR: A lot of musical idioms and techniques do get called Turkish; Western music critics use “Turkish music” as a big umbrella term.

DIAMANDA: That’s what Turkish imperialism is. They are a very rich country—in between what they get from America and what they get from Israel, they do real good. They can afford to have plundered the Assyrians, the Kurdish, the Greeks, the Armenians and many Arabic cultures and call it Turkish. They have borrowed from everyone, and other cultures as well have taken from them. But there is no such thing as a united Turkish music. That is just a bunch of shit.

This whole thing about insults to Turkish people, in Turkey they put people in jail for it. If you say you’re Assyrian, that means you’re insulting Turkish people; if you speak Greek, that’s an insult to Turkishness. And still, those two cultures melted into music that is now called Turkish music. Anatolia was a huge area that was inhabited by many cultures, and now they call it Turkey. And they say it’s “The Land of the Turks”—only because they killed everybody else off that lived there before.

ARTHUR: Of course, modern Greek musicians frequently refuse to sing certain songs because they think the song’s roots are in Islam. But in reality, they don’t know where that song came from.

DIAMANDA: There are a lot of people who refuse to perform certain music because they think they’re performing music by the enemy tribe. And they’re not. It’s part of their own music. The Turks employed Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and Jews to compose music for the sultans. Then they called it “Turkish music.”

http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/01/25/vengeance-is-hers-a-conversation-with-diamanda-galas-by-john-payne-from-arthur-no-28march-2008/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJbgnU_d4ZA

lol @ 'folc'

x-post--interesting

Incidentally, curmudgeon, do you ever check out the Greek music thread? I think you would like some of what I have been posting to that.

Once in awhile but not in ages.

A lot of that Sakir Oner Gunhan album linked to upthread is good, although I still prefer the instrumental aspect over the vocal aspect. (Not that he isn't a strong vocalist--he is! But Turkish vocals tend to put me off a little. Maybe it's even Turkish itself.)

And I must have read about Turkish minimal techno in some comments Masonic Boom made elsewhere.

Onur Özer is the bloke I was talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts2tIeUgBfY

I never did get to go to Istanbul last year. :-(

Thanks. I like the colors there, but the rhythms are too close to regular "dance music" type stuff for me, on first listen anyway.

Well, it is Minimal Techno after all! Just done by a Turkish person. I couldn't find his better e.p. on YouTube, unfortunately (Red Cabaret) but it is still Techno more than Turkish.

For the Middle Eastern music with dance elements (rather than techno with Turkish elements) I still prefer Harem and Natasha Atlas and stuff like that. I definitely mentioned Harem above, and Atlas I think has her own thread elsewhere.

Of the Finders Keepers stuff, it's funny, I loved the Ersen stuff but wasn't that keen on Mustafa Ozkent. I think the latter really didn't live up to the promise of its cover.

p.s. I think half of my love of Turkish music is that I love the sound and feel of the language so much.

Well, it is Minimal Techno after all!

Well, yeah, I was just hoping that somehow the Turkish side of it would blunt the techno side a little, and since getting into Black Noise I now realize that minimal techno can work for me sometimes, unless that album is just a complete anomaly. (I think one reason Black Noise works for me is that there are a lot of other rhythmic things going on besides the sort of foundational techno rhythms.)

This rocks the funky beats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtlKfFIm5es

I think I came across this singer while I was searching for Samira Toufic youtubes, which makes sense because she seems like a Turkish equivalent. I haven't listened to enough Turkish music to feel sure about where she falls in terms of relative virtuosity though. But anyway, a good discovery.

Liking this Turkish soundtrack (I think it's a soundtrack but now I don't see whatever I saw that gave me that idea) more than I'd expect:

http://open.spotify.com/album/4ntAXmmOWxsxnqgQG0GTAb

European chamber music, some Turkish instruments, low-key singing, dashes of electronics.

Sorry, for the Spotifyless, that is Taner Okyol's album Birds of Passage.

Akyol not Okyol. Let's not get Omme Kalsomme about it.

I might actually like Traveller/Yolcu more, but I've been in the music for instrumental music lately, which might explain it. The bazouk (I guess it's bazouk, or something very close) is in the spotlight on this one.

Rhythm track getting a bit too Bill Laswell now, unfortunately.

Lame thread title, imo.

every time you update this thread i think about posting a list of the turkish albums + rereleases i've been digging this year but i think i've mentioned them all on the world thread already.

It’s quite possible you know all this already, however, on the outside chance that you don’t:

Going by Discogs, it looks like the Istanbul-based Kalan Müzik label obtained a license to release this album in Turkey the next year (1995).

Over the past 25+ years, this label has acquired quite a reputation for curating and releasing all kinds of early and mid-20th century music from Turkey. The cd’s of theirs that I have (late 90s/early 00s releases) all came with quite lavish hardcover booklets, although unfortunately the information provided on recording and release dates is scattershot at best.

Still, I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot getting in touch with them. As it says on their website:
“Kalan Music has, with the assistance of expert musicologists, compiled and issued albums of unusual and ethnically varied works that are considered important to Turkish music history. As well as being appreciated by classical Turkish music lovers, academics have found these records invaluable for use as sources in international studies of ethnomusicology.”
https://en.kalan.com/about-kalan-music/

Furthermore, many of the tracks on that Istanbul 1925 album can also be found on other compilations (in some cases with slightly differing spellings/transliterations for artist names and/or song titles), giving you perhaps another inroad.

These two for example are both on FM Records, a Greek label:

Music of the Balkans, Vol. 2: Bulgaria, Turkey 1930-1945: Spotify link

Balkan Medicine: The Early Recordings: Spotify link

Thanks breastcrawl, sorry I missed your reply earlier - that's really helpful.

Great collab, instant number one in Turkey. Why can I hear Britney do this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV9-9RvHsjY
Gülşen & Edis • Nirvana

They have that dance-pop formula down

Edis is back, singing about seagulls:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPUTdqYUa9A
Edis • Martılar

I thought I had mentioned Seyfettin Sucu, who I do like to some extent, on this thread. I only have one of his cassettes, bought without any clue as to who he was (aside from a Turkish singer), but there's a lot of music by him on youtube:
Oh, hey, there (in the video) is the cover for the cassette I have, I think: Bulbul Oter.
More. . .
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 6 February 2010 06:33 (eleven years ago)

Incredibly important in the east, alongside Nuri sesigüzel, celal güzelses etc. All the folk pop sensations like Tatlises of the 70s-80s were cribbing tips off them. That region is just as much Kurdish though, so it escapes the critical gaze of most western commentators — it's all very traditional and doesn't have the gazino glamour of istanbul belly dance music. Another thing is sucu's stuff was recorded pretty badly - turkish production only really started to improve in the mid 70s and even then it was restricted to more anadolu pop and turkish classical sensations, not so much folk music. Although that bad quality adds to the charm, of course.

Interesting to see that Stewart Lee's making a deal about picking up Turkish funk in his latest show. THough I wouldn't think that Bunalim were too metal. Great lp that.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 14 August 2018 11:24 (three years ago)

No, Binali Selman is closer to metal in terms of sheer noise, although not in terms of electrification and amplification. Very close to moroccan trance music of course. Very hard pounding davul on some of his stuff.

A lot of that Sakir Oner Gunhan album linked to upthread is good, although I still prefer the instrumental aspect over the vocal aspect. (Not that he isn't a strong vocalist--he is! But Turkish vocals tend to put me off a little. Maybe it's even Turkish itself.)
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 13 February 2010 01:07 (eleven years ago)

lol thats racist m8.

Onur Özer is the bloke I was talking about.
I never did get to go to Istanbul last year. :-(
― Masonic Boom, Friday, 19 February 2010 11:53 (eleven years ago)

There are quite a few. Jammin Unit and Kahn/Gizz TV from the 90s still did it the best. That Murat guy in the states. This new guy Tolga baklavacioglu isn't too shabby either if you like more abstract gear. Lot.te on the Bunker New York. Gantz if you like dubstep with old arabesk samples. Murat Tepeli for house. merve öngen (howl) is a good weirdo/industrial/hardcore dj from istanbul. I heard Pixi in Istanbul is a good club for jungle, dubstep, dnb, that kind of thing but as I don't go to that side of Turkey and don't go clubbing anymore I couldn't say.

Berlin clubbing is still a stupid racist and islamophobic affair though which probably explains why something like the hardcore continuum never developed there, despite germany having a good 3 m Turks in the 90s. Reynolds insight about germans using techno to reconnect to an disavowed patriotism is spot on, I think.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/26/turkish-pop-star-gulsen-arrested-religious-schools-joke

see upthread for some of Gülşen’s hits