Turning Japanese

After their trip to Tokyo Baba Zula return to Turkey and their roots with a surprising new CD.
James Snow investigates. 

The new CD released by Baba Zula marks a return to their original sound, and is fittingly called “Kökler”, or “origins”. The title can also be translated as “roots”. After viewing band member Ceren Oykut’s artwork for the CD, which is dominated by large limbed trees with massive roots, perhaps this is a better translation to go with. After releasing two albums, which featured a typically eclectic, east-meets-west, coterie of guests, from Sly and Robbie to Alexander Hacke, the group decided to strip down their lineup, getting back to the core members: frontman and visionary, Murat Ertel, effects and electronics maestro, Levent Akman, and the virtuoso, percussionist, Çosar Kamçi. The only guest is their frequent collaborator and friend, the Canadian singer, Brenna MacCrimmon.

Significantly, the album is also produced by the legendary Mehmet Ateş, rather than Mad Professor (of Massive Attack fame), who produced their last two CDs*. The group chose to work with him to get back to the “authentic”, analog sound of late 60s Turkish psych-rock songs they were enamored with in their youth, much of it produced by Ateş. The difference in sound is very apparent. Levent’s effects, electronic beats and samples are still there, but the rest is raw and retro. After a long odyssey characterized by ‘oriental dub’, ‘psychedelic belly dance’ and musique concrete, in other words, a radical reconfiguration of Turkish folk, here the group gets back to basics.

Most of the 29 tracks are instrumentals. Guest, Brenna MacCrimmon, sings the only straightforward song. The other folk song comes courtesy of a sampled and manipulated Neşet Ertaş 45”. The snap, crackles and pops of old-fashioned vinyl are audible on the latter. Fans of Baba Zula’s forays into dub will be glad to know they are still playing around with that genre. However, overall, this CD ia more of a Turkish folk collection, BZ style. Expect odd instruments like the Japanese gas heater, which Murat rescued from the rubbish bin because he loved the illustration of a geisha on it, which is drummed on (“japon halayı”) and other oddities, but be ready for a more traditional approach than usual. The album will most definitely appeal to listeners who liked their debut album, the soundtrack to the film, “Somersault in the Coffin”, and to fans of their live shows.

Traveling around town with this album on the i-pod, gave this writer a sense of place. Though the sound of the saz is often melancholy, the effect is balanced by the upbeat energy provided by the Turkish percussion, and BZ’s playfulness when it comes to lyrics, samples and effects. Somehow it all seemed to fit the cityscape in a way all the trendy east-meets-west albums coming out…don’t. For example, Turkish pop groups who play ska and sound like The Specials are alright on their own terms, but create a kind of cognitive dissonance, as they don’t seem to really come from anywhere but the much-hyped global village, which often is no more than a non-place alla Starbucks – rootless, in short. Songs like “iskender”, which recounts the apocryphal encounter in Anatolia between Alexander the Great and Diogenes the Cynic, also place the listener historically. According to legend, Alexander offered Diogenes anything he wanted and his only response was to ask Alexander, who was overshadowing him, to step out of his sunlight.

The paradox is BZ’s return to their own Anatolian roots came out of a trip to Japan. How you might ask? TOIST caught up with Murat and Levent at the café-restaurant, Misket, to find out:

Murat Ertel: There was this Japanese dub engineer we met in Tokyo…”Uchi” (Naouyuki Uchida)…and we worked with him at the concert in Tokyo and we were very, very pleased. It was the shortest soundcheck of our whole career. It finished in 15 minutes.

Levent Akman: Everything was ready.

ME: The frequency he got with the bass and effects was perfect so we said we want to work with you, so we sent three songs to them. He produced them in Tokyo and sent them back.

TOIST: The last three songs, right?

LA: Yes, the last three.

ME: Our trip to Japan was very important for this album. It really affected this album very much. It really changed our conception of the oriental or the Far East…because the Japanese are living in a kind of science fiction world. They are living ahead of all the other civilizations that we know…and also they are linked to their old traditions at the same time, so they are very futuristic, but also traditional. That approach really suited us very much. We are kind of like that. We have a link with tradition but we are kind of futuristic.

LA: And also in Japan they are very enthusiastic about belly dancing. We heard there are around 200 belly dance schools in Tokyo and our belly dancer from Tokyo…She has 25 students and her teacher has 60 students…and also they wanted to dance to our slow songs.

TOIST: How did the dub stuff go over there? What did they react to the most?

ME: They reacted to the Turkish folk songs, and the slow style the most, which was a very strange thing for us…We have a theory about Turkish culture and Japanese culture having a link and this link was destroyed by China’s interference. Just a theory (laughs)…

LA: Japan was very influential because it was another world because when you’re in Europe everything looks the same.

TOIST: It’s all getting homogenized and polished?

LA: Yes…Germany, Belgium, France, it all looks the same, but Japan and Tokyo are very different.

TOIST: One last question: You’ve had songs banned before. Do you think any of the songs on this album will suffer the same fate.

ME: Yes, (laughs) all of them.

Kökler is out now on the Doublemoon label. Most decent shops now devote a whole section to Doublemoon’s output, but you should find it easy to find this one. Not only is the music stripped down, but the album’s artwork departs from the usual digitally manipulated images that characterize today’s CD covers, and stands out on the shelf with its simple black and white drawing by Ceren Oykut.