This vinyl and digital release is a sampler of sorts for a new project by the German-based Turkish music label Uzelli. The Uzelli brothers started the label out of their Frankfurt import shop in the 1970s, releasing cassettes of all kinds of popular, tradition-based Turkish music.
Now they are digging into their massive 1,300+ album catalog for digital re-release, and Psychedelic Anadolu is a taste of what’s in store. This one focuses on psychedelic recordings made in the period between 1975, the high point of vinyl culture, and 1984, a similar point for cassettes.
In addition to occasionally adding some Western touches like electric or acoustic guitars, electric bass and a rock beat using a trap set, these musicians seem deep into experimenting with what were then new sounds and techniques. Not only do they electrify traditionally acoustic instruments like the lute known as bağlama or saz, they’re adding effects pedals to them, and even in one case to the duduk, the piercing reeded wind instrument. Plus playing around with Moog and other old-school synthesizers.
There are some really unexpected gems here. I’m not overly familiar with Turkish music, but some of these songs just made my spirits soar. If you ask me, the best of the lot is “Bu Ellerden Göçüp,” by Aşık Emrah with its stripped-down arrangement. What more does it need than this funky bass line, boom-chick drumming, Aşık Emrah’s laid-back vocals and absolutely insane soloing on the electric bağlama (saz), laden with effects pedals and distortion? It’s just too bad that it fades out so soon; I could listen to this one all day.
(It turns out Aşık Emrah was a stage name for one Hamza Başyurt, who would have been in his 30s and early 40s during this period when he was recording and directing music for Uzelli. The title “aşık” means something like troubadour or minstrel, but the aşıks were actually a community of performers of traditional poetry accompanied by the saz.)
Among the other riches here are “Öksürük” which is uncredited but features a recitation by a deep-voiced guy over a reggae-like groove with very distorted electric guitar – it sounds like a missing song from the soundtrack to Borat; the deep groove of “Seker Oglan” by Akbaba Ikilisi, featuring bongos, electric bass and saz, and the Turkish wooden spoons known as kasik; Neşe Alkan’s rocked-up sevdah “Kacma Guzel,” accompanied by Zafer Dilek Orchestra; and “Unal Buyukgonenc,” by Deniz Ustu Kopurur, which sounds a bit like spaghetti western music that wandered onto the wrong sound stage! Oh, and there’s the highly emotive vocalist Elvan Sevil’s “Yar Senin Icin,” in some time signature I have yet to figure out — I’m pretty sure I heard this blaring from a radio or cassette player in the souk in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1977.
Don’t neglect the cover art, either. It’s an example of the original work done for the label by their graphic designer Armagan Konrat.
You can learn more about this release and Uzelli Music in general on their website or Facebook.
(Uzelli, 2017)
