Nefes

Dede, Mercan – Nefes (Doublemoon)
Reviewed by Sadie O., 11/2/06
Fusion of traditional Turkish instrumentation and electronica. Should appeal to a spectrum of interests from World to Dance/electronic to experimental. Although now living in Canada, Dede is extremely popular in Turkey. Guided by Sufism, he is consciously trying to create a global connection and awareness through music. It’s beautiful stuff and rewards a good listen, but you’re gonna have to be relaxed to get into it. All sounds fairly similar, so start anywhere.
Few vocals, no FCCs. Most tracks end just a few seconds shy.
FOUR STARS ON EVERYTHING, although I most like tracks 5, 7, 10, 12, 14
1. 5:22 faint ethereal noises for a few seconds, then solo violin, other instruments added, slow mysterious groove starts a minute in. Some lyric-less vocals. Some of it is like an Indian raga combined with dance/trance.
2. 5:12 slow, lovely female vocals, handdrums and instruments that float around exotically. Everything builds throughout the song.
3. 5:09 handdrums, ney (horn) and whispers, downbeat and either a bit melancholy or meditational. Music winds down and you can hear a heartbeat…
4. 4:07 trance-y and beatless, ney, echos and drones. Midtempo handdrums after a minute and a half, then there’s a lovely traditional-based tune.
5. 3:55 big random drumbeats and bits of traditional instruments, then drums quit and there’s a slow bass-driven shuffle with lots of interesting sounds going on. Oooh, the big drums are back!
6. 3:50 random sounds, including a variety of vocals including male singing that sounds like Islamic call to prayer. Very slow, no beat, trance-y.
7. 4:23 cool somewhat uptempo beat, whispers, slithery but you can dance to it!
8. 5:04 odd bits of vocals, drones, flutes. Slow beat starts 2 minutes in, stops about 45 seconds from end.
9. 3:01 waves and tweets and random instruments, beat builds out of bits. Some human beat box, of sorts, actual beat around 1:30 along.
10. 4:53 midtempo, rather funky beat, lots of electronics as well as trad instruments. Pretty. Nice energy, hand drums.
11. 3:58 harp sounds, slow Arabesque groove starts about a minute in. Where’s my hookah?
12. 4:51 ney and drones, floating through the minarets, fun electronic beat starts a minute and a half in, very cool sound, very relaxed.
13. 4:35 electronic vocals in undecipherable English, nice midtempo groove 1 minute in. Male singing in Turkish, very traditional.
14. 6:27 bowed instrument and drone, building to extremely slow but fun exotic groove with layers of interesting sounds, female vocals. Seductively scary.
15. 8:53 heartbeat, breathing and drones, then ney, other instruments gradually build, then fade to breathing and heartbeat. Ends at 4:46 remaining, starts a new song at 3:47 remaining with some street noises and ney, some flutes, no beat.