Music from Turkey

Original UK edition on Turnabout's explorative and ground-breaking "Electronic Music" series of the 1966 album presenting three classic and essential early experimental electronic compositions.

Portrait CD of Turgut Erçetin: five works including the cycle Das Phonem zwischen zwei Wörtern for Baroque ensemble and orchestra, played by Ensemble Musikfabrik, the ELISION Ensemble and the SWR Symphonieorchester under Brad Lubman.

Great electronic/tape pieces realized in 1976 at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and released on the composer's own Finnadar label.

1967 re-press (Allentown) of the second album on Turnabout's landmark "Electronic Music" series presenting three classic and essential early experimental electronic compositions originally released in 1966.

Original US pressing of the third album on Turnabout's landmark "Electronic Music" series presenting four classic and essential early experimental electronic compositions, released in 1967.

A raw, groove-driven selection of previously overlooked 1990s recordings by legendary Turkish jazz impresario Okay Temiz, compiled here for the first time.

"A Composition of Agitprop Music for Electromagnetic Tape" by İlhan Mimaroğlu is a collage of political sound art blending revolutionary texts, manipulated electronics, and the vocal performance of Tülay German. Recorded from 1972–74, it transforms agitprop tradition into a radical meditation on freedom and dissent.​

Big tip! Sing Me a Song of Songmy is an album-length composition by avant-garde Turkish composer İlhan Mimaroğlu, released in 1971. Principal performers include jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and Mimaroğlu himself. The piece includes a chorus, strings, recitations of poems by Fazil Husnu Daglarca and other texts, organists and tape-based musique concrète, as well as Hubbard's jazz quintet. It is considered as one of Hubbard's most experimental albums.

CD version. Bülent Arel's (1919-1990) work occupies a special place in the history of electronic music, with one thing being certain: Arel's work is still fresh, groundbreaking, and it always look outs for the next adventure in sound. Sub Rosa present a collection of his works here as part of their Early Electronic series. Bülent Arel was a Turkish-born American composer of electronic and contemporary classical music. He was also a devoted teacher, a sculptor, and a painter. From 1940 to 1947, A…

Huge Tip! Never before released recording of the Sensational and Banned Turkish Theater Play by James Baldwin and Engin Cezzar, Istanbul 1970. Licensed by Gökhan Akçura, author of Engin Cezzar's autobiography, who was personally entrusted with the original master tape by Engin Cezzar. "One of the most shocking and daring plays staged in Turkish theaters was banned by the Istanbul Governorship on February 7, 1970. The ban on the play, which was watched by 30,000 people in 60 days, did not last lo…

The first official reissue of one of Turkey's most sampled records in 45 years! Turkish psychedelic masterpiece from 1980.

*2023 repress* Caz Plak İstanbul proudly presents Okay Temiz's Oriental Wind - Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 1982 LP. A fantastic cocktail of Turkish Jazz which has unique rhythm sections like 9/8 , 7/8 , Anatolian Rock and Funk. Okay Temiz perfectly demonstrates the immersive layers of Turkish music. Never before released until now, a Turkish Jazz Magnum Opus is unearthed in collaboration between Istanbul-based Caz Plak and Montreux Jazz Festival. The performance by Okay Temiz's "Oriental Wind…

Percussionist and composer Okay Temiz scored two underground hits in his native Turkey with “Denizaltı Rüzgarları” (translation: “Submarine Winds”) and Dokuz Sekiz. The songs are slinky, eerie funk/psych/jazz hybrid that marries Temiz‘ impeccable chops as a percussionist to a lute-like Turkish saz and some truly otherworldly sounding Moog riffing. They're both purely instrumental and almost appear to borrow elements from Brazilian music and in particular Tropicalia, though the melody is clearly …

**2020 stock** Turkish-born musician and composer Ilhan Mimaroglu worked extensively with electronic (tape) music. The two programmatic pieces paired here are "To Kill a Sunrise," a dirge subtitled "Requiem for Those Shot in the Back" with words borrowed from a poem by Guatemalan guerilla poet Marco Antonio Flores, composed in Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (New-York, N.Y., 1974). And "La Ruche" composed at Groupe de Recherches Musicales (Paris, France, 1968) an experiment of reminis…

A native of Istanbul, Turgut Erçetin (1983) studied composition and completed his doctorate studies at Stanford University. In 2016, Erçetin was awarded with DAAD Artists-In-Berlin program for a year-long residency in Berlin, and since then he has been based in Berlin. Erçetin's works engage with issues of sound, not as colors but as sonic entities that interface with time and space. Most of his works, therefore, are involved with acoustics and psychoacoustics as well as computer aided compositi…

2019 small repress. **beautiful vinyl edition of the hugely sought-after avantgarde gem** Matsuli Music is proud to be releasing another forgotten gem of the South African jazz diaspora – the 1976 Istanbul session featuring Johnny Dyani and Okay Temiz fusing deep roots and new routes, integrating folklore and rhythm within an experimental, avant-garde vision of love and life.  Remastered by Frank Merrit at the Carvery, Witchdoctor’s Son is presented as a deluxe gatefold sleeve including new line…

While there’s no explicit date listed anywhere within, I’m guessing the pair of 45rpm 7”s in question - released only in Turkey - date to the mid-60s, with each featuring Solmaz Sporel reading a different fairly tale over a completely amazing Musique Concrète tape-backing by Ilhan Mimaroglu, produced at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York. Personally, these particular outings are some of the most gratifyingly zonked things I’ve ever heard, having much to do with the langua…

Here’s a fine set of pieces, each showcasing the Buchla electric music box. Daria Semegen’s harmonic-series-rich “Arc” - composed at SUNY Stonybrook’s electronic music studio, established by mr. Arel in 1971 - at times recalls other era electronic “Spectralists” like Daniel Arfib, yet works across a more spare iterative space, often recycling short micro-melodies cut with the unmistakable thwack of the Buchla’s vactrol-based gates. It’s an incredible, patient piece of music that begs the questio…

"Collective improvisation based on a Turkish folk tune. One of the most ecstatic piece of music i ever heard (simple as it is) ! suddenly i found myself dancing madly, like a Whirling Dervish... unfortunatly i didn't get Enlightment BUT, it was fun !" ep

"1st time ever that two of the most legendary figures from the Turkish jazz scene (Okay & Ertunc) play/rec. together, so really an historic event ! classic pn trio + some more ethnic/otherworldly moments. special front cover artwork by Huseyin, who's an acclaimed painter (he designed also the old Intex front covers...), especially in his own country."Label press

two albums of 'agitprop' electronic music -- Tract & To Kill A Sunrise cut between 1968 and 1975 -- by mysterious & controversial Turkish composer Ilhan Mimaroglu -- one of the truly underrepresented pioneers of the golden age of the Princeton-Columbia electronic music scene. Produced as a direct reaction to an extended period of intense repression, counterrevolutionary terror, & execution style murder in Turkey, Tract is a scrambled mash up peppered with spunky electronic bursts, radio ads loop…