ALTIN GÜN
Turkey / Netherlands
Altin Gün are:
Ben Rider (guitar)
Daniel Smienk(drums)
Jasper Verhulst (bass)
Merve Dasdemir (vocals)
Erdinc Yildiz Ecevit (saz, keys, vocals)
Gino Groenveld (percussion)
Jasper Verhulst est le bassiste de Jacco Gardner, quand après un concert à Istanbul, il en revient fasciné par le son de la scène turque des années 1970.
A cette époque des artistes comme Selda Bagčan, Barış Manço et Erkin Koray (voir liens ci-dessous) combinent musique traditionnelle et les influences rock et psychédéliques occidentales.
A la recherche de ce son , Jasper s’adjoint les services de Ben Rider (guitare) et Nic Mauskovic (batterie) et via Facebook recrute deux musiciens turcs Merve Dasdemir (chant) et Erdinc Yildiz Ecevit (voix, saz,) Altın Gün est né.
ils seront alors rejoint par le percussionniste de jungle by night Gino Groeneveld
depuis Altın Gün fait revivre cette scène turque des années 70 en reprenant les titres des artistes sus mentionnés ainsi que ceux de leur contemporains moins connus .
c’est rafraichissant , c’est dansant , ça nous aidera a passer 2017.
“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are
unknown, and in between, there are doors,” nineteenth century poet and novelist William
Blake once beautifully suggested.
To discover new things you sometimes need someone to open a door between the known
and the unknown. Altin Gün (‘Golden Day’) is the band holding that door handle.
And when the door swings open you smell, feel and hear a mix of sounds you may have
heard before separately but never in this brilliant new context that sounds totally new.
On their debut album ‘On’ (Bongo Joe Records), the band show what happens when you
open doors between Turkish folk songs which were passed on from generation to generation
on the one hand and a dirty blend of funk rhythms, wah-wah guitars and analogue organs on
the other. The Amsterdammers who come from various backgrounds (Turkish but also
Indonesian and Dutch) comfortably create their work in the adventurous no-man’s land that
exists between these two worlds.
Older generations of Turkish musicians have also experimented with opening doors between
previously unconnected sonic worlds. During the seventies, artists such as Baris Manço,
Selda Bağcan and Erkin Koray practiced a way of songwriting and composing similar to Altin
Gün’s.
They took the music played during the festive occasions and serious formalities of their
childhood, folk songs backed by a traditional Turkish string instrument called the saz. To this,
they added the techniques and vibes of their times and the result then went on to become a
distinct Turkish sound during 1972-1977 which even today still sounds rich, danceable and
(alright then!) heavily mind bending.
The Altin Gün band members first encountered this music in various ways: through their
upbringing, via friends or after finding life changing compilations in record shops. Their own
personal discoveries eventually led them to collectively open doors to crowds everywhere
across Europe, from the Into the Great Wide Open festival in Netherlands to Istanbul, from
Ghent to Geneva and from Ravenna to Rotterdam; people all across Europe fell in love with
Altin Gün’s unusual combination of familiar sounds.
Manço, Bağcan and Koray have all influenced Altin Gün, but their foremost inspiration is
Neşet Ertaş, a Turkish folk musician whose musical legacy is invaluable. Comparisons are
almost impossible to make but imagine someone with the same impact and status as Bob
Dylan or George Gerschwin and you’re getting close. Many of the songs he wrote have
become standards in Turkey, national treasures which are cherished up until the present day.
Altin Gün retain the lyrical and thematic structure of Ertaş’s songs, though they often alter
their time signatures and add fuzzy bass sounds, sweltering organ sounds and raw saz riffs.
Ertaş wrote the majority of the songs on the album even if these are hardly recognisable after
all the work Altin Gün have done on them.
The songs have universal themes such as love, death, desire and destiny. It is touching
music that makes you want to move and massages your soul all at once. Music that sounds
familiar but different Music that’s deeply emotional even for someone who doesn’t speak a
word of Turkish.
Let Altin Gün open that door for you and get ready to indulge in their fresh and beautiful
sound.