Customer Reviews

Hava Narghile: Turkish Rock Music 1966-1975

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...and maybe Nuggets 2 anthology fans too. I was surprised by how familiar and NONotherworldly a lot of these tracks sound. Amon Duul's "Paradieswarts Duul" is my favorite album, and there are a couple songs here that sound like they belong on it: Baris Manco & Kaygisizlar's "Flower of Love" (the good liner notes say Manco was studying in Belgium at the time and "realized his own country could be the cultural link between East and West") and Mogollar's "Berkay Oyun Havasi". One other tune has a Yardbirds thing going on, another has tinges of 60s Bay Area music, and one even sounds somewhat like the Edgar Broughton Band. The best band on here, by far, is Mogollar, whose "Hard Work" is one of the best psych-rock tunes I've heard. The liner notes say they got slagged in the Turkish press at the time for singing in English. Go, Mogollar, go! Somebody please get their first album from 1971 rereleased around here. What makes me even gladder about hearing this is that I had absolutely no foreknowledge, no expectations, and was thus able to hear the CD with as open an ear as I can have nowadays. I'm definitely going to check out some more compilations in this vein. Before anyone accuses me of excessive hype, I will say some tracks have vocals that might be considered "cheesy" by most Western listeners, including myself, but by my count 10 tunes are rock solid, and a few are masterpieces.

This is a nice collection of hard-to-find Turkish rock from the heyday of their psychedelic scene. If you like discovering weird adaptations of rock culture in 'foreign' climes, then this is a disc to check out! Also worth tracking down is the "26 Turkish Delights" compilation, which has an even harder acid-rock edge to it.

Absolutely fantastic comp of 1967-75 Turkish psychedlic bellydance music. There's a few surf-style instros (sort of like Dick Dale's "Miserlou" in reverse), but the main emphasis is on hypnotic, droning psych versions of Middle Eastern traditional tunes, some with flower-power lyrics. Jam-packed with Turkish delight at 71 minutes. Caveat: mastered from rare vinyl 45s, some of which have obvious surface noise.

Bellydancers looking for a change of pace from the traditional orchestral numbers should definitely check this out. Click on the sample of track #4 for the fastest, most surfer-psychedelic karshilama you can imagine. Many of these songs have traditional Turkish rhythms, and make a wonderful change from the ubiquitous techno-Arabic pop. The cover of the album says "vol. 1" and I hope there are many, many more to come!

A caveat: I am nowhere near conversent--yet, but I am a tender forty-- in world-psych from the 1960s and 70s, so I can't judge if the best Turkish music out there.

But I love this CD. Putting fuzz guitars and rock beats to the mournful scales of Turkish music was the name of the game back when the Fabs and Airplane ruled the world, and people really WERE going to San Fran with flowers in their hair.

If you like the sound of middle eastern music, this is packed with it, but also rocks with all the psych trimmings of the era. There is not a weak track here, and, aside from some muddy sound-this would be a perfect place to start if you like olives, houmus, and pita bread with your rock and roll.

I liked this Turkish psyche comp better than the Turkish "Love Peace & Poetry" comp. It's more interesting. Some of it sounds like Black Sabbath with Belly dance breaks. Some of it sounds like Selda's first album. Theres even a killer Moog sounding cut. The sound quality is lo-fi: it sounds like you're playing old vinyl - but I like that...

I wish Dionysus would rock more intl. psyche comps. they have awesome taste.

P.S. Im not sure I would recommend it to a belly dancer unless theyre a hippie.