The southern Turkish city of Antep has been at the crossroads of several trade routes for centuries. Caravans from Istanbul, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia met here. When the Antep-born singer Olcay Bayir moved to London, she had little trouble communicating with musicians from a different culture. She gathered a group of artists from diverse backgrounds (two British, a Turk, a Greek,
… an Albanian and even a Venezuelan) to play the music of Antep. The origin of the songs is at least as diverse as that of its band members. The album opens with an Albanian love song, later Bayir sings a Sephardic-Jewish lullaby and an Armenian song. Of course she also draws from the Turkish folk music of Anatolia, such as that of her father, an 'aşik' (an itinerant bard), got to know. It delivers a varied album by a singer with an emotional, penetrating voice. (PdK)more
