Tracklist:

1.1Neredesin Sen
1.2Gönül Dagi
1.3Öldürme Beni
1.4Nigde Baglari
1.5Benim Yarim
1.6Sucum Nedir
1.7Gel Yanima Gel
1.8Zülüf Dökülmüs Yüze
1.9Gel Kacma Gel
1.10Bir Nazar Eyledim

Altin Gün, the Grammy-nominated Turkish psych-groove quintet from Amsterdam, return with their sixth studio album Garip — their most ambitious and diverse release to date, and a heartfelt tribute to the legendary Turkish folk bard Neset Ertas.

Neset Ertas (1938–2012) was a beloved icon of Anatolian music; a gifted singer, lyricist, and baglama virtuoso who carried the spirit of the ashik folk tradition into the modern era. Garip ("Strange" in English) features ten of his compositions, each reimagined and richly expanded through Altin Gün’s distinctive lens.

An electrifying live band with an ever-growing global following, Altin Gün push their sonic boundaries even further on Garip — weaving in lush Arabesque string arrangements, bursts of saxophone, glimmering synth balladry, and a fresh surge of tightly wound rock ’n’ roll.

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Since bursting onto the scene in 2018 with their debut album, On, Amsterdam-based Altin Gün have been at the vanguard of the 21st century revival of Turkish-influenced psychedelic grooves.

Coming straight out of the gate with a wah-wah and organ heavy sound that effortlessly captured the spirit of Anatolian 70s psych-funk masters like Baris Manço and Erkin Koray, they deepened and expanded their palette with 2021’s Yol, which brought synths and drum machines into the mix for a more 80s-influenced dream-pop vibe.

But no matter how far out they’ve gone, they’ve always maintained a strong link to the same Anatolian folk traditions that inspired those early pioneers. Founder and bassist, Jasper Verhulst says: “We’re doing the same thing a lot of those artists were doing, which is playing Turkish traditionals and songs written by folk artists.”

Now, with their sixth album, Garip, they’ve brought that connection to the folk source front and centre, showcasing a collection of songs all originally written by Turkish folk legend Neset Ertas.

Ertas (1938-2012) was a revered and much-loved Turkish singer, lyricist and baglama player, and a modern-day embodiment of the ancient ashik tradition of the folk-bard-troubadour. Throughout his long career, he recorded more than 30 albums and wrote hundreds of songs – some of which were famously recorded by the likes of Baris Manço and Selda Bagcan.

For Altin Gün's vocalist, keyboardist and baglama player, Erdinç Eçevit, interpreting a suite of Ertas’s tunes is a chance to get back to his roots.

“Both of my parents are from Turkey, from the same area he is from,” he says. “It's the music that I grew up with. When I was five, six years old, my grandfather always had cassettes by Neset Ertas and I used to listen to it all day long. Then I was too young to really understand the lyrics and the meaning, but I really liked the melodies.

Now, years later, Eçevit has fully immersed himself in Ertas’s lyrics – messages from the heart that are, he says, “stories about what he’s facing in life. The Turkish traditional music is the blues of the Turkish people.”

Nowhere is this better exemplified than on ‘Gönul Dagi,’ one of Ertas’s most famous compositions, here brought to life by Eçevit’s yearning, sensitive vocals.

“‘Gönul Dagi’ is about the pain of love, the storms of the heart and the loneliness of longing,” says Eçevit. “He’s expressing what rural Anatolia has always felt – that love is both sacred and sorrowful, a force of nature.”

In Altin Gün's hands, the tune becomes a languid funk-rock crawl with watery guitar, a loping bassline and a palpable hint of mystery deepened by luxuriant string arrangements provided by the Stockholm Studio Orchestra.

The strings feature on several tracks, touching on influences including Egyptian popular music, Bollywood soundtracks and Turkish Arabesque. But, as Verhulst explains, there’s another touchstone underpinning the sound. “There’s definitely a French Italian influence in those arrangements,” he says.

It's a prime example of Altin Gün's urge to cast their net wide and incorporate a far-reaching set of magpie musical directions.

Album opener, ‘Neredesin Sen,’ is a throbbing, bass led vamp with a strong early-80s Indie flavour that showcases the fluid chemistry between drummer Daniel Smienk and percussionist Chris Bruining. The closing track, ‘Bir Nazar Eyeldim,’ is a breathtaking ballad with Eçevit’s pleading vocals playing out over lush synth arpeggios and a sparse electronic rhythm. Along the way, the band also touches on proggy vibes, with Eçevit getting down and dirty on the synth’s pitch-bend, and a laid-back west coast ambiance. Check out Thijs Elzinga’s gorgeous slide guitar on the smouldering ‘Gel Kaçma Gel’ to dig just how relaxed they can sound.

Fans of Altin Gün's past work will find much to love too.

The Anatolian element is still strong – and not just in Eçevit’s aching vocals. Eçevit’s tight baglama figures are woven throughout, making a direct link back to those earliest influences on tracks like the smoky ‘Nigde Baglari,’ with its off-kilter folk rhythm and cavernous sense of the Anatolian steppes stretching out for miles.

“It’s our most eclectic album,” says Verhulst. “There’s a little bit of everything. The songs are harder to label. We wanted to do something different than what we’ve done before. Less in your face, less poppy, less obviously psych-rock. More just vibing.”

Garip is the sound of a band that’s constantly evolving. A mature musical unit with nothing to prove. A band that’s having a whole lot of fun.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9ycFyakiBk

Tracklist:

1.In Search of Yang
2.Spirit Adapter
3.Lecker Song
4.Yata Yata
5.Night in Taipei
6.Golden Lion
7.Elma
8.Kasumi's Quest
9.Slow Burner
10.Pattaya Wrangler
11.Mooncake Melody

On their fourth album Yatta!, the celebrated Dutch quartet YIN YIN extends, bends, and ignites a joyous mix of disco, funk, surf, psychedelia, and Southeast Asian motifs. UNCUT magazine previously dubbed their highly addictive sound “cosmic disco”—a fitting starting point—but as Yatta! proves, the band's sonic footprint is an ever-evolving kaleidoscope of sounds, textures, and beats.

As with their breakthrough album Mount Matsu (2024), their devotion to getting the dance floor moving remains front and center. That impulse, already strong, has intensified — Yatta! lifting it to an ecstatic next level.

The result? An album that reveals a band whose groove just keeps getting deeper.

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The opening track on YIN YIN’s new album, Yatta!, begins with a sample of the philosopher Alan Watts expounding: “There is no Yang without Yin and no Yin without Yang.”

Appropriately enough, the track – a jubilantly upbeat slice of disco action – is called “In Search of Yang,” and begs a question about the meaning of the group’s name. The group’s drummer and co-founder, Kees Berkers, explains: “Yin Yang is about balance between two different forces and Yin Yin would essentially mean two negative forces that cannot reach a common ground. So, YIN YIN is about finding a balance in the unbalanced.”

Certainly, over the last six years, the quartet from Maastricht in the south of the Netherlands has built a reputation for balancing an eclectic range of influences and using them to forge something that is affectionately retro and, at the same time, fresh and forward-facing.

The group’s origins lie in an experimental jam session in a remote village ballet school in 2017, leading to the release of the single, “Dion Ysiusk,” the following year. The debut album, The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers was released in 2019, followed by The Age of Aquarius in 2022. After a few personnel changes, the quartet’s line-up had, by 2023, arrived at its current form of Kees Berkers (drums), Remy Scheren (bass), Jerôme Scheren (keyboards) and Erik Bandt (guitar). 2024 saw the release of Mount Matsu, now followed by the group’s most complete statement to date, Yatta!

From the beginning, YIN YIN have been devoted to exploring global sounds with an emphasis on getting the dance floor moving – an impulse that reaches its peak on Yatta!

One major influence is the sound of Italo Disco – the spacey brand of disco music that arose in Italy in the late 1970s. “It has something of a mystique,’ says Berkers. “All the producers were using new recording techniques and effects, but there are not many pictures or videos of how they were creating things in the studio. You have to use your own fantasy and create your own story about how that music is created.” You can hear that sense of mystery on tracks like “In Search of Yang,” with its endless groove and trippy backwards guitar effects.

Across the album, YIN YIN specialise in creating the soundtracks to dream journeys, opportunities for the listener to visit places that exist in realms of the imagination.

“That’s a big reason why the music’s instrumental,” Berkers confirms. “It leaves a lot of room for the listener to fill in the gaps. You can really make your own trip of it. It’s very movie-like.” And it’s not just the movies we get to visit. “Kasumi’s Quest” is built around a mysteriously ascending and descending synth figure, coming come across like the music to a lost computer game – “an imaginary quest of an imaginary character in an imaginary world,” says Berkers. “It could be like a difficult quest in a dungeon, and Kasumi could be the character that you’re playing.”

If there’s a general direction of travel in YIN YIN’s expeditions, it’s towards the east, with Asian influences coming through loud and clear. “Lecker Song” feels like a 1960s Japanese soul-funk spy movie theme with a sample of a koto buried in the mix. “Yata Yata” could be the throbbing disco soundtrack to a Thai spaghetti western. “Night in Taipei” is an atmospheric ballad summoning a fragrant evening in the Taiwanese capital, and “Pattaya Wrangler” suggests a sundown stroll on the Thai city’s golden beaches.

It's a fascination that has suffused YIN YIN’s sound since, in the early days, they stumbled upon a couple of compilation albums of psychedelic 60s and 70s guitar music from Southeast Asia. “Those albums had the most influence on that East Asian route we took,” Berkers recalls. “Via those compilations, we got to YouTube channels where we couldn't read anything because everything was in Thai letters or in Chinese symbols – and that felt like we found the treasure!’”

Adopting Eastern tunings has imparted an unusual feel to YIN YIN’s music and challenged them as songwriters.

Berkers explains: “If you're making music for a long time you get to some points where you think ‘I'm always doing the same thing.’ And then a simple YouTube channel or a compilation can give you that spark you need!”

There’s no shortage of sparks in Yatta!’s blend of dancefloor fillers and laidback soundscapes. Guitarist Erik Bandt explains: “We tried to make a mix of songs that are very energetic, danceable party starters, but also have songs that take you on trips and are more easy.”

Underpinning all of this is a welcoming, natural feel, with everything recorded directly to tape.

“It’s our most organic album to date,” says Bandt. “We recorded together as a team in the studio instead of recording separate tracks for drums, guitar, bass – it’s all live and that adds a certain feel.”

All of which explains the album’s title. Bandt says: “Yatta is a Japanese phrase meaning ‘We did it, we accomplished it!’ After we finished the album, we thought this simple phrase actually ties it all together.” Berkers continues: “It also speaks for a more general idea that we, as a band, succeeded to really become a band on a professional level. So, it's also, ‘We finally are true musicians now. We have arrived.’ Basically, we made the dream come true.”

Yatta! Is the sound of four musicians finding their own globe-trotting groove, and having the time of their lives exploring it. Lucky for us, we’re invited too.

Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More

The first thing that grabs you about Altin Gün"s new album is the energy. With Ask, the Amsterdam-based sextet turn away from the electronic, synth-drenched sound of their 2021 albums, Alem and Yol. While those two, created at home during the pandemic, paid homage to the electronic pop of the 80s and early 90s, Ask, marks an exuberant return to the 70s Anatolian folk-rock sound that characterised Altin Gün"s first two albums, On (2018) and Gece (2019). But there"s development here too. Ask is the closest the band have come so far to capturing the infectious energy of their live performances. "It"s definitely connecting more with a live sound - almost like a live album," says bassist Jasper Verhulst. "We, as a band, just going into a rehearsal space together and creating music together instead of demoing at home." "We didn"t record it like we did the last album," agrees vocalist Merve Dasdemir. "We basically produced that one at home because of the pandemic. Now we"ve gone back to recording live on tape." How many more worlds do Altin Gün visit in this joyful expedition? "Rakiya Su Katamam" is glowering space rock as though Gong had taken a stopover on the Bosphorus. "Canim Oy" is a psychedelic freakbeat stomper from a world where Istanbul"s Kadiköy district was the Carnaby Street of the east. "Güzelligin On Para Etmez" is a dreamy acid-folk anthem. And the finale, "Doktor Civanim," is an irresistible slice of sci-fi disco camp with lava-lamp synth squiggles that wouldn"t sound out of place next to Baris Manço"s "Ben Bilirim." Fresh yet timeless. Rooted in antiquity yet yearning for heavenly futures. Ask wants to take you places. All you have to do is strap yourself in

TRACKLIST
1.1 Badi Sabah Olmadan
1.2 Su Siziyor
1.3 Leylim Ley
1.4 Dere Geliyor
1.5 Çit Çit Çedene
1.6 Rakiya Su Katamam
1.7 Canim Oy
1.8 Kalk Gidelim
1.9 Güzelligin On Para Etmez
1.10 Doktor Civanim


Sicherheits- und Herstellerinformationen / safety and manufacturer info (GPSR)
WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
Liebigstrasse 2-20
DE - 22113 Hamburg
Germany
Contact: [email protected]More