Altin Gun - Garip Altin Gun

Altın 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, Neşet Ertaş.

Neşet Ertaş (1938–2012) was a beloved icon of Anatolian music; a gifted singer, lyricist, and bağlama 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 Altın Gün’s distinctive lens.

An electrifying live band with an ever-growing global following, Altın 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.

For Altın Gün's vocalist, keyboardist and bağlama player, Erdinç Eçevit, interpreting a suite of Ertaş’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 Neşet Ertaş 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 Ertaş’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 Daği,’ one of Ertaş’s most famous compositions, here brought to life by Eçevit’s yearning, sensitive vocals. “‘Gönul Daği’ 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 Altın 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 Altın Gün's urge to cast their net wide and incorporate a far-reaching set of magpie musical directions.