TURKISH ELECTRONIC MUSIC PAGE
This is a new facility of Munimonde to do a few things to promote the
electronic music performed , composed or somewhat produced in Turkey...The
first subfacility of this page is an article introducing portraits in electronic
music...
Electronic Uses In Music-Turkish Experience
Electronic Uses In Music -Turkish Experience In fact it's so hard to
determine a starting point for the process of electronic music in Turkey.By
knowing this fact i prepared a non-systamatic history to enlighten especially
the ones who are interested in the Turkish experience and unable to find
better sources except some orientalist views.Also i must express that my
aim is not depending on a nationalist spasm ; it is only to express the
brotherhood of vintage synthesizer love...
Portraits:1.Gokcen Kaynatan:
1.Gökçen Kaynatan:Being a former Hank Mervin style guitarist, he was
the greatest show musician that ever appeared in Turkey.After playing with
the groups Kara Kediler,Somer Soyata and Gökçen Kaynatan ve Arkadaşları
during the sixties; he retired from the show life and formed the first
electronic music studio in Turkey.His works can be classified in two groups:One
group is the popular use of electronics in music inwhich we can mention
"Beyoglu'nda Gezersin-Pencerenin Perdesini" single which was the first
released stuff by "1 Numara" Records of Ali Kocatepe.In the second single
he selfproduced for 1 Numara is "Sihirbaz(Magician)-Evren(Universe)" single
which is a sample of his seek of art music with use of electronics.Kaynatan
continued to perform and compose music with frequences till 1979...During
this period he produced many unreleased stuff such as Cehennem(Hell) ,Lost
Island, Doğanın Otesi(Beyond The Nature), and lastly he did Angio which
describes a surgery operation he had in 1979...Nowadays Kaynatan makes
pure Rockn'roll music with his old partners and does his occupation as
an architect. Kaynatan also has stuff performed, composed and arranged
on EMS synthesizer.
Sound Sample From Second Single In The Genre Of Electronic Music released by 1 Numara in 1973:
Portraits:2.Metin Alatli
2.Metin Alatlı:Born in 1936...As far as i know he began his musical
career with the group called "Metin Alatli 3"They joined The Bosphorus
Music Festival in 1965 and won a prize which i can not remember right now.Alatli
then,joined Siluetler in 1966 and did a lot of contribution in group's
great performance during the "Golden Microphone" Music Contest.After leaving
his place to the legandery keyboardist Murat Ses,he went to france and
played as a session musician with Sylvie Vartan,Paul Maurriat etc.He also
made shows in nightclubs of Turkey and formed the first group where rthyme-box
takes the place of the drummer.I don't know exactly when and how he first
played and experienced Moog Synthesizer ;but he must have involved enough
that he made his first and last L.P using ARP Synthesizer but by getting
the contributions of musicians like Veysel Çadır(drummer) and Yaz Baltacıgil(bass),
Stephan Umutyan (electric guitar)...The lp is named "Synthetic Dance Moods"(Sentetik
Oyun Havaları) Alatlı died in 1992 because of a heart attack.
Sound Sample From A Track From The LP:
Portraits:3.Murat Ses
3.Murat Ses:He is still the most active person among the pioneers of the Moog synhesizer.(Born in Bayraklı,İzmir in 1946) The first instrument that he played was a Harmonium which had micro-tonal properties.In the Fall of 1963 he formed his teenager group,"Meteorlar"(Meteors) with his friend Aziz Azmet.They covered the songs of Animals,Dave Clark Five,Schell Danon etc.In 1967 Aziz and Murat joined Siluetler,then comes again covers,but this time with better musicians.In 1968 he formed "Moğollar" and created his minimal,melodic and transforming fusion view from the traditional music to the music which he heard from the west and became also one of the formers of the postmodern age taste.He won Charles Cross Academy Prize of the French Ministry of Culture with the L.P named "Danses et rthymes de la Turquois aujurd hui" After returning Turkey he favored several Tukish bands with his Hammond organ.In 1976 he made his first solo single inwhich he used Moog Soniq synthesizer.It was also the last thing that he did in Turkey.The single was named as "Bean Theet Man".It had an inspiration of Eric Von Daniken's books that seek relations with human civilization with probability of a help from other civilizations in the cosmos.But Ses uses another argument from a folkloric resource.He displays a strange dance that is performed in Yunt Mountain of Kütahya which inspires us an unknown world in our cosmos. This use of synthesizer prepared a new career of Murat Ses as an Austrian-Turkish new music artist,this time a modulating digital synthesizer master who can reflect the sound,bending and other properties of traditional instruments like ney,mey,sipsi,kanun in a synthesizer.More over he does what he thinks for his music called Electric Levantine... The digital but anologue touch part of Murat Ses music can be overviewed with the parameter of his trilogy which he planned to finish till the year 2000...The first part of the trilogy is 1990 album Automaton dedicated to Cezari, the inventor of the first mechanical robot ; the second is 1995 album Binfen, dedicated to unknown heroes of aviation history including Lagari, Hazerfan Ahmet Celebi, Firnas and the third is named Culduz which is dedicated to Piri Reis the great Turkish-Ottoman Navigator... Culduz means "star" which helps navigators find their directions. The last part of the trilogy perfectly summarises the route of Ses between the periods and the soundscapes of Automaton and Binfen...It has the rthymic booms of Automaton and the touch of minimalism of some type of western touch...Therefore it is between west and east interpretation of minimal and human touch of Murat Ses music
For more info about Murat Ses here is his web adress: http://linz.orf.at/gast/murat Also connect him with e-mail: muratses@hotmail.com
Sound sample from his 1976 single released by Diskotur, Turkey:
Fasulye Disli Adam (Bean Teeth Man)
Portraits:4.Attila Ozdemiroglu
4.Attila Özdemiroğlu:Still going on making popular music arrangements;Attila
Özdemiroğlu is one of multi sided musicians of Turkey.He has an academic
background in music;but his evolution was leaded to more banal and kitsch
ways.He began his career with Jupiters and went on with Durul Gence 5,Durul
Gence 12,İstanbul Gelişim and finally "Dün,Bugün,Yarın" Orchestra...Especially
in the records that he produced with Dün,Bugün,Yarın he prefered to play
Moog synthesizer with his former instruments which were breath and string
instruments,while his partner Şanar Yurdatapan,who was less skillful than
him , went on playing his weak bass.... In 1975 Attila Özdemiroğlu produced
a single called "Moog GIR-GIR"..It was used both as a signal music to introduce
Dün,Bugün,Yarın at the beginning of the concerts and as a sound track in
Turkish Movies....
Sound Sample From His 1975 single released by CBS, Turkey:
Portraits:5.Baris Manco
5.Baris Manco :Formerly a rockn'roll singer Manco had many evaluations
during his career in music.He had experince in many genres in music some
with a good will , some fully commercial.Beginning his career in 1958 at
the age of 15, he experienced rockn'roll, twist, beat , Turkish psychedelic
, east and west, ambient, funk , anatolian rock etc...He had the chance
to make music with fabolous Hammond organist Murat Ses in two of his singles...After
his sessions with Murat Ses he gained a view of creating ambient soundscapes...He
had the advantage of this inheritance in his most strange concept album:"2023"
which was produced in 1975....The album included two musical legends:one
is "Kayalarin Oglu, 2023" the other is "Baykoca Destani" ...Kayalarin Oglu,
2023 is the greatest score he had produced...For the first time in an album
a drum machine was used recalling the ambience of Jean Micheal Jarre's
Oxygene....The string synthesizers were the leading keys during the album,
but also Hammond Watkings Phaser, and an early model of Korg also had its
place in the album...In 1977 in his album called "Baris Mancho" published
by C.B.S. ; Mancho made a vocal version of 2023...The album was a complete
failure with its Bonny M sound in both musical and commercial field.After
this failure Manco returned with the lp "Yeni Bir Gun"(A New Day)(1979)
In the lp he had covered 2023 with a different context, and with extra
creative arrangements and compositions added by Ahmet Guvenc(bass guitarist
of Manco's group Kurtalan Express) and Kilic Danisman(Moog , elc. Piano
and strings player of K.E.)The name was 2024....The album also had a different
ambient score named Coban Yildizi(The Sheppard Star which is a name of
The Planet Venus)...He told the story of the planet venus with a musical
and an epic way which is very typical in most of Manco's works. He used
the same argument of Von Daniken during telling the story and making it
an epic science fiction score like Murat Ses did 3 years before Manco's
attempt.In 1981 Manco did "2025 , the last journey" for his 1981 L.P. "Sozum
Meclisten Disari" ...In this lp Nejat Tekdal assisted Manco in using E.M.S.
synthesizer which Manco needed the help of Gokcen Kaynatan to create a
single sound because of its specificity...With aid of Tekdal Manco exhibites
3 great pieces such as "Gulpembe", "Donence" ,and "2025"...After this album
Manco can be observed more an entertainer than a musician.That was so because
of the great tranformation of Turkey after 12th September coup where nobody
could achieve to use his civil initiative...The objects of art became objects
of a non-limited consumption...In this circumstance Manco also had to cheat
in a popular culture pool... I was still hopeful for his comeback where
he could express who he really was...But to late for him and still we have
time to archieve his works and provide unreleased stuff to be on the market...Manco
died on February 1,1999...Play Moog in the heaven!!!
Sound sample from his single and LP released by Yavuz:
Portraits:6.Merih 2000:
Strange group or project which I could get no info except a Diskotur
labelled single from 1970...It contains two pieces:Latitude Zero-Mars 2000...It
is fully performed with samplings; maybe the rock group part was performed
by the group itself...The owner of Diskotür Records Antoin Schorez had
died a few years ago ;that's why we are nearly hopeless to reach info..
But as far as we know the samples are from Pierre Henry, but there are
much contributions added in Turkey...But the Turkish contributers are still
a mystery....
Sound sample from the record relesed by Diskotur in 1970:
