Sunday Features - Upcoming World Music Artists in Year 2005 - Part II

Melike (Long distance/Harmonia Mundi)

Thanks to forced secularisation in the 1920s and relatively early industrialisation, Turkey has a well-established "folk" tradition in the Western sense, in which privileged urbanites look to rural sounds as a source of inspiration and "authenticity". Real traditional music, meanwhile, thrives in peasant and nomad communities.

Epitomising the former tendency, cool-voiced chanteuse Melike Tarhan draws the sounds of the ashik - Anatolia's traditional bards - into a web of sophisticated international influences, creating a parable on the current Iraq war which makes for surprisingly soothing, meditative listening.


Title: Macar
Release Date: August 9, 2004

Melike is the name of a new band based in Ghent and it's also the name of lead singer Melike Tarhan, born in Ghent of Turkish parents. She grew up listening to classical Turkish music, but gradually became engrossed in all forms of traditional Turkish music. She has also studied Eastern as well as Western singing techniques. She decided to start a band with husband Osama Abdulrasol. Abdulrasol studied Arab music in Baghdad, Western classical music in Great Britain and plays the qanun (plucked zither).

Melike breathes new life into the old troubadour songs by creating a Turkish folk style that belongs to the young generation of today. Macar tells the story of a boy who goes off to war, and is dedicated to the children who were victims of the war in Iraq.

This CD is built around the narrative of a 17-year-old boy who goes to fight and die in Çanakkale: the 1915 battle better known in the West as Gallipoli, where the ill-advised Allied invasion of Anatolia met with fierce and unexpected resistance from Ottoman troops. Masterminding the resistance was Mustafa Kemal, who went on from there to build modern Turkey and become Atatürk. One of the most tragic battles of the past century, where hundreds of thousands died for nothing more than colonial interests, the incident definitely resonates in these times of bloodshed.

In this concept album, Melike’s delicate and sweetly perched voice brings alive some of the ancient troubadour traditions of Anatolia. This short album is a tapestry that describes a circular cycle of life, love and death. It opens with a young boy, Macar, leaving his village of Suvermez to fight for his country. Macar disappears in the conflict leaving his mother wondering if he is alive or dead.

Mixing poetry by W.B.Yeats with a rich vein of traditional Turkish folk music, Melika weaves a spellbinding story of despair, hope and resilience. It is a simple tale, simply told. Melika claims the record "was conceived like a novel" though, at 48 minutes, a gripping short story is perhaps a more suitable description. Be that as it may, 'Macar' is yet another example of the Turkish musical renaissance that is centred on but is not exclusive to Istanbul, in the early part of this century.

Rich string arrangements support the delicate but intense voice of Melike, who tells the story in a combination of traditional and original pieces, with brillant contributions from some top-class Turkish soloists: Derya Türkan and Nedim Nalbantoglu. The two traditional tunes with 'aviary' metaphors - Bülbülüm Altin Kafeste and Iki Keklik, with the final track stand out for emotional charge, but the whole record introduces a welcome new voice and an original concept into the increasingly global Turkish music scene.