Taner Öngür has been the torch-bearer for Turkish pop rock for decades, even baptising the genre with the name ‘Anatolian Pop’. The bass guitarist cum multi-instrumentalist has played with many of Turkey’s seminal artists, including Barış Manço, Erkin Koray, Ersen Dinleten and Selda Bağcan, and featured in the line-ups of leading progressive and psychedelic Anatolian […]
Roots The effects of the French Revolution in 1789 reached the Ottoman Empire nearly fifty years later. Starting from 1839 until 1876, during the regression period of Ottoman Empire, a set of reforms were implemented to modernise, centralise and improve the legal, economic, social and political structure of the government, which was called the Tanzimat […]
UPDATE, 12 March 2020: This event has been postponed due to the Coronavirus Istanbul based musician/producer Tolga Böyük set the wheels in motion for Islandman, a fictional character composing musical stories about a non-existent place… On stage, Islandman is an electro-acoustic trio serving up a tasty mix of mellow electronica and dance beats with […]
In almost every speech, Gaye strongly asserts she’s fighting the “Geography is destiny” saying, aphorised by Ibn-i Haldun in the 14th Century. Is this a pertinent remark for Turkey and Turkish artists? In a way it is. Turkey has had many economic, social and geopolitical issues over the years. With its central location as a passage […]
On Sunday, 19 January, a packed house at Camden’s Jazz Café celebrated the music of Barış Manço – one of the godfathers of Anatolian Rock. This legend, who passed away 21 years ago today (1 February 1999), had a profound influence on Turkish culture. Known for his long hair, prominent jewellery and flamboyant stage costumes, […]
When London-based singer-songwriter Djanan Turan invited some musical friends to hold a tribute concert in London on the twentieth anniversary of the death of Barış Manço, few could have predicted the outcome would be quite as epic. Five hundred people packed into Jazz Café to pay homage to the legendary psychedelic rocker, known as much […]
Friday, 1stFebruary, will mark twenty years since one of Turkey’s most influential singer-songwriters and TV personalities Barış Manço passed away from a heart attack aged 56. Characterised by his long hair, horseshoe moustache and flamboyant jewellery, he was adored by Turks of all ages. During his 37-year career, Manço composed over 200 songs, and recorded […]
A pioneer of rock music in Turkey and one of the founders of the Anatolian rock genre, Barış Manço is the best-selling, most awarded and most influential Turkish artist of all time. As a recording artist, Manço’s songs were translated into multiple languages including English, French, German, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hebrew, Urdu and […]
Probably Turkey’s best musical export, BaBa ZuLa has gained a huge global fanbase with their stunning delivery of Istanbul psychedelia. Performing since their student days at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul in the late 1980s, BaBa ZuLa’s authentic blend of Turkish folk, complete with electric saz and spoons, is fed through the musical filters of dub, […]
The self-proclaimed masters of 21st Century Turkish psychedelic music have forged their own path since forming in 1996. Today, they are globally celebrated as the glorious purveyors of alternative Anatolian music, their hybrid music a perfect blend of electro, dub, funk, rock ‘n’ folk. Their origins date back to their student days at Boğaziçi […]
