City Scenes is our weekly dive into the music scenes of different cities around the world. Each week we’re moving through the alphabet and this week we find ourselves in Istanbul, Turkey.
Istanbul is a city in Turkey with 16 million inhabitants. Istanbul holds a special significance in that in many ways it is the place where east meets west - in both geography and culture. Istanbul sits on the Bosphorus straight, a body of water that separates the continents of Europe and Asia and so the city and its residents are formed by this meeting and melting of European and Asian influences.
It’s also a city that is steeped in History. During the Roman period it was called Constantinople and stood as the capital of the eastern roman empire and then the ottoman empire. Due to its strategic location it has always been a hub for trade and transport attracting people, produce and cultures from across the world. All of this has given the city a hugely dense cultural identity which has undoubtedly affected the music that is made in Istanbul.
For today's episode, we focus on Turkish Rock music and in particular, the genre of Anatolian rock or Turkish psych rock as it is also known which has played a hugely important role in Turkish popular music.
In the 1970s musicians like Erkin Koray and Baris Manco started making music that fused elements of western rock music with Turkish folk and traditional pop music, blending the scales, structures and melodies of their native country with rock instrumentation and rhythms. Erkin Koray is often called the father of Turkish rock. He was the first person to add an electronic pick up to a traditional Turkish string instrument called the Baglama, thus creating a new instrument that was heavily responsible for the sound of Turkish Psych Rock.
In the 1970s Istanbul had a buzzing music scene. Artists like Baris Manco Selda Bagcan and Cem Caraga along with a host of others were making this new and exciting music that blended their traditional routes with the influence of western rock music that they were hearing on the radio and in record stores. Like in any thriving music scene, they all played in each others bands, playing on multiple instruments and recording in different combinations, managing each other and promoting each others concerts around the city. Some of the bands from that period include Mogolar, kardashlar, kurtalan expres and Uc hurel.
The musician who is probably most known around the world and adored in Turkey from this Period is Baris Manco. If Erkin koray was the father of Turkish Rock, there is no doubt that Baris Manco is the king of Turkish psych rock. He is a national hero in Turkey. So popular in fact that he once intended to run for president of turkey and if he had, there is a good chance he would have won, he’s that celebrated by everyone in the country. As well as a celebrated rock star he became a much loved tv personality, watched by millions every week and you still hear his music everywhere you go in turkey to this day.
In Baris Manco's track, Alla Beni Pulla Beni, you can easily hear the mixing of western rock music with turkish. This is a music where east meets west, just like the geographical location of Istanbul which separates Europe and Asia and - fun fact: Baris Manco named his two sons Doğukan and batikan which literally mean ruler of the west and ruler of the east so that tells you how much that cultural identity meant to him.
The turkish psych rock sound that began in Istanbul in the 1970s with artists like Erkin Koray and Baris Manco is alive and well today thatnks to acts like Baba Zula and Elektro Hafiz who hark back to those Turkish psych routes but pushes things further in an electronic direction.
If you want to dig further into the sounds of Turkish Psych Rock we would recommend listening to:
Mogollar: spoti.fi/3iw1R1N
Uc Hurel: spoti.fi/3W0g4BL
Kurtalan Expres: spoti.fi/3CK3DTQ
Selda Bagcan: spoti.fi/3GHM8VI