A discreet, but colorful whole, a stream of consciousness both as concrete as a cobblestone and light as a breeze off the saline sea.
If the current street violence is indeed a reaction to the attempt to force a monoculture upon the citizens of Turkey, then Mark O’Leary and Erdem Helvacioğlu’s Istanbul is a timely reminder of its deeply multicultultural layers.
O’Leary is a guitarist well-traveled in both the literal and stylistic sense and Helvacioğlu, reinforcing with each new album his reputation as Turkey’s most multifaceted musical experimentalist, actually launched his recording career with an atmospheric stroll through the city’s bazaar. For this collaboration, the latter collected sounds of the city in preparation for the former’s arrival in Istanbul to wander its streets himself and then join Helvacioğlu in his studio to arrange the material.
Istanbul is divided into four parts, “West,” “River,” “Bridge” and “East,” a raised-relief ambient sound map which moves from Europe, across the Bosphorus to Asia, in air fresh with sunlight, street bustle, ferry boats, seagull screech, calls to prayer and calls to market stalls. It is a discreet, but colorful whole, a stream of consciousness both as concrete as a cobblestone and light as a breeze off the saline sea.
Istanbul is available on TIBprod. Italy. [Release page]
[itunes id=”527449232″]
