BaBa Zula & Mad Professor — Ruhani Oyun Havaları

The first release by the DoubleMoon-label I noticed was Üç Oyundan Onyedi Müzik by BaBa Zula. It got my attention by looking different from other stuff in the Turkish section of the shop. I found out they sounded very different as well.

Slowly, as more of this label's records ended up in the Dutch worldmusicshops there turned out to be an entirely different music-scene going on in Turkey than the regular popmusic, ethnic folk and classical music coming from there.

The music of BaBa Zula is a subdued, atmospheric mix of folkmusic and Western rock. Traditional and electric instruments are augmented by samples of organic environmental sounds and electronic and sequenced parts. The fact that the music on that disc was created for plays in the theatre might explain the somewhat sketchy approach. On their third album Ruhani Oyun Havaları (translated into: Psyche-belly Dance Music) the material is more songbased but the environmental sounds remained. In Cecom for instance, where crickets add a strong nightly mood to the song. The quintet has several guests on the album like clarinetmaestro Hüsnü Şenlendirici from Turkish folkjazz-group Layço Tayfa as well as American singer Brenna Mac Crimmon who studied Turkish music in İstanbul for 5 and half years and played in Karsılema.

What makes this album even more special and exciting is that they got British dublegend Mad Professor to treat their music in his own way. Several songs appear in roomy dubmixes like the hypnotizing Şu Dağları Sardı Feryadım. The title means ‘My cries covered all these mountains’ and the reverberating vocals surely emphasize that feeling. Mad Professor treated the tracks very tasteful as it doesn’t feel he had to force Jamaican riddims over the Turkish ones. Otherwise the full spectrum of dubtechniques passes by,

So what we have here is another great example of ‘world-music’ in the true sense of the word. A lovely and charming mix of two traditions (well, roughly, there’s more to it) very far apart geographically but working great together in a colourful psychedelic oriental trip.