Album: BaBa ZuLa - Hayvan Gibi | reviews, news & interviews
Album: BaBa ZuLa - Hayvan Gibi
Album: BaBa ZuLa - Hayvan Gibi
Direct-to-disc Turkish psych-folk in a well-travelled groove
The Turkish psych folk band Baba Zula are at their very best live: the essence of their appeal depends on slow-burning climbs towards an ever-elusive climax, perfectly honed for a crowd that wishes to dance their minds away.
The band have been around for a while now, and the music on the album is nothing particularly new in terms of style and sound – indeed several of the tracks, including “Çöl Aslanlari” are regular features of their live sets. The confluence of Anatolian folk music – played on the long-necked cura and saz, with characteristic percussion from darbuka and spoons – and the tropes of rock, metal and reggae have served the band well: this is great party music, vibrant and kept on an exciting cliff edge by slowly mutating riffs that create a hypnotic haze of often distorted sound.
Middle Eastern string music thrives on a mind-bending play with microtones, those gaps within the certainty of tempered notes and scales that are reputed to open the door to transcendence. Electrified, fed through wah-wah pedals and other forms of distortion enhance that magic.
Osman Murat Ertel, one of the band’s founders works wonders with the saz and the higher register cura, and percussion wizard Ümit Adakale shows off his skill on a dazzling darbuka solo on “Nal”.
Much Turkish folk music is linked to all-male war dances, and there is something about BaBa ZuLa – in spite of the snakey, belly-dance feel of the rhythms, that feels inescapably masculine, perhaps not with the macho histrionics of metal, but drawing something from a martial spirit that reaches back to the Central Asian steppes from which the Turkish people originally came.
rating
Explore topics
Share this article
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
Add comment