Anatolian Rock

Anarcho Romance… with its Rock ‘n’ roll roots, combines mainstream influences from jazz, blues, funk, electronic and free improvisation. These influences blend Anatolian melodic vibes using the classic Fender VI Bass to produce a very fresh but haunting visual sound. It has been described as “Movies for your ears”. This album is an auditory journey inspired by an artist living in the “melting pot” of Istanbul, reaching out to the new world.

With an unfettered sound influenced by everything from Afro-beat to Anatolian funk, Goat are an experimental rock band based out of Gothenburg, Sweden. Not much is known about the mysterious, masked band, though an apocryphal backstory claims they are just one of many incarnations of the band over the last 30 years from a small, voodoo-worshipping northern town named Korpilombolo.

With the release of her first album Develerle Yaşıyorum (2014) and her first international album “Hologram İmparatorluğu” (2016), Gaye Su Akyol established herself as one of Turkey’s most compelling young voices and most exhilarating sonic explorers. Her work as a singer-songwriter, producer and audio/visual conceptualist, simultaneously navigates the storied past, the hyper-connected present and the unscripted future.

Panthers prowling through a desert. Cowgirls swaggering into a saloon and kicking up dust. Riding shotgun with a Tarantino heroine. Having the fiesta of your lives under a giant piñata with all your friends.

Hailing from Cyprus’s divided capital Nicosia, and led by Antonis Antoniou, the founder of Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke, Buzz’ Ayaz creates a transfixing Eastern Mediterranean psychedelia. Their self-titled debut album is a fuzzed-out urban soundscape of dubby electronics, 70s-psych organ, growling bass clarinet, amplified folk instruments, ritual beats and Greek and Anatolian melodicism.

Hailing from Cyprus’s divided capital Nicosia, and led by Antonis Antoniou, the founder of Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke, Buzz’ Ayaz creates a transfixing Eastern Mediterranean psychedelia. Their self-titled debut album is a fuzzed-out urban soundscape of dubby electronics, 70s-psych organ, growling bass clarinet, amplified folk instruments, ritual beats and Greek and Anatolian melodicism.

Istanbul has a deep, layered history. From its beginnings as a fishing village to one of the pillars of the Roman world. The final stop on the Silk Road. The centre of the Ottoman Empire as the Turks spread their huge net across the Middle East. Across the centuries the city drew in cultures and blended them. Growing up there, singer-songwriter Gaye Su Akyol breathed all that in every day, along with her family’s ancient roots in Anatolia. Those rich traditions combine to form part of the sound she’s developed on her album Hologram Ĭmparatorluğu (Hologram Empire), where sultry Turkish melodies twine around spiky, twanging guitars and insistent rhythms.