Marimba: Ayberk Garagon
Double Bass: Aydın Balpınar
Tenor Saxophone: Özgün Tuncer
Violin: Seçil Işıksoy
Guitar: Mehmet Korkmaz
Trumpet: Efe Gazi
Drums: Till Menzer
Piano, Accordion, Avedimba: Avedis Özdemir
Synthesizers: Avedis Özdemir
Recording & Mix: Can Şeren, Avedis Özdemir, Can Akın
Mastering: Kıvılcım Konca
Cover Art: Arel Demircioğlu
Cover Photo: Chiara Toso
In this album, I wanted to describe Istanbul, not as it is usually described in tourist guides, but with a very subjective point of view as a citizen. Of course Istanbul does not consist of Bosphorus, Maiden’s tower or Golden Horn for me. Here I wanted to create the concept of a journey of mine during my undergraduate years. I was living in Bakırköy back then and Yenikapı had become the main transfer station of the city. And Beyazıt is the town where my University (Istanbul University) was located.
‘Beyazıt’ on vinyl is available now! Click here for more.
Intro
This composition is about the preparation before a tough day. The preparatory sounds of the instruments aim to provide this feeling of ‘preparation’ before the other pieces of the album. Thereby I am speaking of the sounds from the first opening of an accordion bellows or knuckles, tuning sounds of a violin and a trumpet and a cough which rapresents the warm-up of the vocal who will give the rhthym for the following song ‘Yenikapı’.
Yenikapı
The second piece describes Yenikapı as a transfer station of the city. For those who don’t know about the Yenikapı station, I can basically say that it is one of the most crowded stations because of the crucial location of itself. Goddfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi’s metro scene actually quite fits the metro station image of Yenikapı in my mind.
So the piece starts with a voice, just giving the tempo and one of the meters of the piece in Turkish, which is 14/8. I guess it is not wrong to call this meter as an unusual one. By the use of this meter, I wanted to describe the jam in the metro station. Later, the rising tempo represents a new train which arrives to the station instead.
Beyazıt
Beyazıt is the third town that I wanted to mention in my album. It is the town that I both studied and worked as a t-shirt salesman. In my point of view it is one of the places that you can get both really fascinated and terrified at the same time. Because the town gets covered with garbage at night, and this situation creates a huge duality between unbelievably fairytale buildings and disturbing landscapes. So I tried to imagine this town in both ways. The word ‘sewage’ and then PVC pipes were the first thing that was popping into my mind when I was thinking of Beyazıt. That is why I created Avedimba (more info here).
PVC pipes were being used for sewage disposal, and moreover they sound great!
Epilog
With this piece, my main intention was to create the sense of monotony that we are experiencing throughout our lives. The piece starts with a very calm melody, and then the arpeggios that we are getting along the piece are repeating themselves to emphasize the monotony of our lives. As the piece grows we start to hear sudden meter changes that represent the groundbreaking events we experience very few during our lifetime, such as bereavement, birth, love etc.