It’s the Journey Listening Post 358. Art and life merge in the luscious voice of Elif Sanchez, and her second album offers the privileged listener an international voyage, no passport required. Her music rests on a traditional foundation of family and schooling: Born...
Sen Svaja: Kraitis iš pelkės / Dowry from a Swamp
Tripartite Fairy Tales Listening Post 286. Three women who present themselves as pixies, mixing real and mythic realms. Three pillars: Smart theatricality; venue (a biodiverse marsh); and group name (Sen Svaja), from an Old Prussian term meaning “with family,”...
Olcay Bayir: Rüya – Dream for Anatolia
Music for a Long Journey Listening Post 203. Olcay Bayir’s extraordinary second album begins with an endless walk on a narrow road, the trek drawn from an Alevi allegory of life’s journey. The artist has a parallel story: Born in southern Turkey, her musical Kurdish...
Fulya Özlem & Akustik Kabare: Mânidar Boşluk
The Incredible Lightness of Gravity Listening Post 182. The singer-songwriter Fulya Özlem spent years studying and performing abroad, tracing a path that includes English, Scottish and Irish folk, tango, Latin jazz, bossa nova, French and Spanish Renaissance...
Ferhat Tunç: Kobani
Living With Critics Listening Post 128. The Kurdish-Turkish singer-songwriter Ferhat Tunç has achieved artistic success, but he has also provoked criticism that goes well beyond negative reviews. Over the course of his 30-year career, he has been harassed, censored,...
Gülben Ergen: Kalbimi Koydum
In an Asia Minor Key Listening Post 29. Notwithstanding its name, the Turkish music form known as Arabesque has Byzantine and Balkan influences as well as Arabian. Over the past 20 years a new form, Arabesque-pop, has emerged with the addition of more Western...