Beyond Istanbul: Underground Grooves of Turkey
Reviewed by Sadie O., 6/7/07
1.2 hours worth of wildly eclectic Turkish grooves. Not all THAT underground, really, but most tracks showcase the mix of various traditional Turkish musical styles with a huge range of other musical forms – even Reggaeton, Ska and Hip Hop. Lots of good info in the multilingual liner notes (typically of Trikont). Great comp.
No FCCs (in English, at least). I’m not crazy about tracks 11 and 14, but everything else is bloody AMAZING.
1. 4:52 **exotic flutes and electronics intro, downtempo dance groove after 30 seconds. Arabesque vocals. Music builds in layers, quite exotic and belly-dancish. Fades to false ending in middle, comes back more energetic.
2. 4:30 ***hand drums and male vocals, crowd noises in background. Somewhat uptempo, urgent sounding. Kurdish and proud.
3. 4:46 **ethereal electronics with a bit of sashay, then downtempo dancehall groove. Turkish tune after 1 minute, mixes with electronics – pretty.
4. 3:44 ****female speaking in Turkish, the handdrum beat, female chorus doing sort of kiddie song chant, then female vocals in combination of rap and singing, funky midtempo beat.
5. 7:17 ****downbeat handdrums, jazzy horns. Beautiful female vocals, reciting various 3-letter abbreviations. Seductive and strange.
6. 5:38 ***handdrums and a bit of horns, female vocals by Aynur (Kurdish singer – we have one of her CDs), mysterious electronics. Gorgeous, and maybe a bit scary.
7. 4:33 ****soap opera intro, then midtempo Turkish Reggaetone (a hit from anther Turkish collection we have.) Such a crazy mashup!
8. 5:53 **belly dance groove, layered with a dance beat, spoken vocals in English, repeated. Experimentalish, lots of Turkish musical touches. Beat goes and comes.
9. 3:17 ***clapping, slow funky groove, then hyperspeed Turkish rap. Turkey’s biggest hip hop star, this track put him on the map.
10. 3:06 ****midtempo funky beat with orchestra, very Turkish. Over the top female vocals (Turks love the agonized emotionalism.) Very cool beat, though.
11. 5:38 pretty electronics, acoustic guitar and handdrums. Male vocals. A bit smooth-groovy.
12. 4:56 *****starts with horns and Reggae style rap in English, then high-speed Turkish/Roma ska. One of my favorite tracks EVER, for years now. LONG fade on this track.
13. 6:19 ***slow hand percussion and a bit of electronics, Arabesque horn – crazy mysterious and cool.
14. 4:02 *hand drums, sweet guitar, female pop vocals. Rather Latin beat, little evidence of Turkish traditional music. More of the emotionalism Turks seem to love in their pop music.
15. 3:21 ****Turkish hard rock (a VERY popular genre in Turkey) – nice example, loud, dramatic, some orchestral bits.
16. 5:16 **classical orchestral piece using Ottoman formats. Can’t dance to a lot of it, but it’s pretty amazing stuff.