Café Türk

Café Türk, an inimitable Turkish-Swiss band formed in the 1980s, whose genre-bending sonic palette draws from Anatolia, the Caucasus and Western Europe. The group’s frantic trajectory connects Switzerland and the Turkish city of Kars with a background story as rich and unexpected as their sound. After three decades since they disbanded, Zel Zele Records have collaborated with Turkish crate-digger Grup Ses to give the music of Café Türk a new lease of life. This eponym compilation features original album tracks, singles and previously unreleased takes that trace the outline of the group’s history. From the rolling disco of the group’s debut recording “Haydi Yallah”; to the previously unreleased kosmiche of “Yıldızlar”, “Ali Baba From Istanbul”s Azeri grooves and German language vocals, to the psyched-out interpretation of Caucasian folk tune “Şamil”, ​Café Türk ​showcases the endless stream of ideas the band had during their time together between 1983 and 1990. Tracks come with an unrestrained spirit, weaving in the crackling energy of new wave, rock, disco and reggae with influences from Turkey and Azerbaijan.

This fascination in pulling different worlds together goes right back to the formative days of Metin Demiral, founder of Café Türk. Metin grew up in Kars, a provincial town in the Northeastern part of Turkey. Kars was once known for its multicultural communities; where you could hear locals speaking a range of languages, from Turkish to Azeri, Russian and Kurdish. Then there’s his parents: his Turkish father married his Swiss mother while studying in Zurich, a rare Christian-Muslim union in this remote and traditional part of Turkey. The couple exposed Metin to both local and Western sounds and often brought him back instruments from their travels abroad.

Metin had hoped to bring his new record to audiences in Turkey again, however, he found it impossible to get any of his songs played on state-sponsored radio, something he attributed to the infamously strict supervisory board of TRT, Turkey’s state-funded broadcaster. TRT tended to not accept songs that blended both western and traditional Turkish music in order to avoid “degenerating” Turkish folk music. Cafe Türk tried to fight this conservative mindset, but progressively resigned themselves to the political restrictions of the time.

Café Türk’s disbandment is the usual tale of creative and personal band differences, but before then they released a final album Giriş Serbest, in 1989. Metin’s life in music has carried on, working as a sound engineer and opening the Orient club in Schaffhausen which he still runs to this day. The curation and release of this new compilation on Zel Zele is a triumphant tale of an artist whose belief in music is that it should cross boundaries, no matter the restrictions that are on its way.