Psychedelic Music Explosion
Moods & jazzhane present
Cem Yıldız
Global SoundsAnatolia
Cem Yıldız, the Modern-Day Aşık
Derived from the Turkish word for "one who is in love", Aşık refers to the troubadours and bards of Anatolian culture. Cem is considered a modern Aşık and tirelessly explores the boundaries of modern Anatolian music. Inspired by poets and folk musicians such as Yunus Emre or Ali Ekber Çiçek, his idiosyncratic creation of shamanic acid folk and spiritual lyrics creates a hypnotic atmosphere.
This piece of art was one of the main inspirations to create the Psychedelic Music Explosion series. Listening to it for 23 minutes, I can almost hear the motives of the Face/Off (1997) movie soundtrack, resemblances from the Prodigy's No Good drum sets, popular Anatolian songs such as Kime Ne or Ötme Bülbül, downtempo techno beats combined with hypnotizing and looping vocals, and the essential saz, that defines the entire song. You can feel the musicians taking a break from the live-impro session only to come back with more energetic, accelerating vocals and saz tunes, persuading listeners to readily embark on an otherworldly journey.I always felt the saz in combination with techno beats to be transformative. It is no coincidence that within the Alevi-Bektaşi traditions, the Semah (a set of mystical and aesthetic body movements in rhythmic harmony) is performed as part of the meditation and prayer practice. Semah rituals are founded upon the concept of unity with God as part of a natural cycle: people come from God and return to God.A curious explorer and passionate improviser, Cem often records his songs in one take (Kime Ne, Demedim Mi Part I and II, Âhir Benem, etc.). For the techno aficionados among our guests, there's a Ricardo Villalobos remix version of Kime Ne.
Haydar Haydar
Haydar Haydar, composed by Ali Ekber Çiçek in the 1970s and known to be one of the most complicated pieces written for the bağlama has inspired many a muscian over the past decades. It takes talent and hard work to learn and master the song on any instrument. The fast pace and the changing irregular rhythms can set the listener into a trance-like ecstatic state. Beyond talent, it takes courage to reinvent the most complicated song ever written for the bağlama for the 21st century: a 17-minute progressive and hypnotic masterpiece and tour de force. The looping vocals in combination with the perfectly played bağlama make the poem all the more powerful as if you could feel the writer's journey to achieve eternal and sacred knowledge.Stil The song where all the pieces culminate into a club banger for eternity!
Güzel Aşık!If you haven't had enough yet, here's a bonus track.
Cem Yıldız will be playing as part of the Psychedeliv Music Explosion series on 24. November at 20:30 at Moods.
