Gaye Su Akyol -
Hologram İmparatorluğusd (Glitterbeat Records)
LP / CD / DL
Out Now
8/10
Review by Jay Stansfield.
The opening track
‘Hologram’
blasts you in the face with some really vintage sounding Eastern strings fresh
out of Steve Reich’s nightmares of him playing in a metal band or
something...it’s intense in places and really takes you by surprise. It slowly
and subtly transitions into a belly dancing frenzy of immense drumming, crazy
time signatures and bursts with energy and sounds almost Jewish at times.
‘Akil olmayinca’ is very reminiscent of Ennio Morricone with it’s
almost cowboy-themed melodies and strong male backing vocals juxtaposed against
Gaye Su’s haunting and rich vocals. It’s a real boiling pot of East meets West,
sensually blended together with a trumpet. It traverses beautifully into ‘Kendimin
efendisiyim ben’ not letting up on the Morricone theme but this time
adding elements of Tango surf guitar and even little touches of Plone in a
strange non-synthlike way to this short and sweet little tune.
I love it when
instruments all play the same riff and then it all turns into Ozric Tentacles
like ‘Fantastiktir
bahti yarimin’ does, swimming
back to the swirling and accomplished vocal trickery we’ve been hearing
colouring this already enchanting and almost space-rock album.
‘Kendimden kaçmaktan’ has an almost Dick Dale vibe to it with the
flamboyant electric guitars blasting out those Phrygian scales and Gaye’s
vocals floating all over the top make it exciting and fresh to listen to. ‘Dünya kaleska’
is no exception and without the vocals you would be forgiven for thinking
this is an album by some new new-wave American garage band it’s that confusing
(in a great way).
‘Eski tüfek’ has an almost Math-Rock edge to it at the start
which got me bopping like crazy thinking of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with a
tremolo-driven, reverberated vintage Gibson. It really goes for it towards the
end and reminded me a lot of the 60’s psychedelic space-rock being done by
bands like Pink Floyd and Groundhogs.
‘Uzat saçini Istanbul’ has some beautiful melodies, stunning singing and
a tone that just draws you in. Nothing about this album is too overbearing and
it’s a really interesting listen, especially with that heavily riff driven
guitar running up and down the tracks. It even reminds me a bit of Patrick
Watson if he were on a trip to Turkey intentionally writing Eastern infused
tunes. Wonderful stuff. We get back into those belly dancing rhythms on ‘Nargile’
with an added male vocal singing in unison giving a nice thick, rich vibe to
it. Oh and those strings...yummy stuff indeed!
By the time I
reach ‘Anlasana
sana aşiğim’ I’m starting to hear lots of similarities which isn’t a
bad thing and through ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘Berduş’ I’m still tapping my
toes and enjoying it but I would have probably made the album a couple of
tracks shorter if not to just have something that made an impact and then left
you wanting more. Saying all that though, this is an album full of charm with a
curious fusion of styles all blended together to create an engaging, exciting
and cool album that I would return to again without hesitation. The production
is first class.
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