Spotlight: Gaye Su Akyol

Surf guitars, double-tracked vocals, psychedelic overload, a summoning of the spirits of Syd Barrett and Brian Jones, punk and stoner rock, all wrapped in the region’s ancient culture and featuring a rumbling bassline of contemporary politics – welcome to Istanbul-based artist Gaye Su Akyol’s fourth album, Anadolu Ejderi (Anatolian Dragon), plugged directly into a power source that casts its own spell. 

“Anadolu Ejderi is an archaeological excavation of the imprints of Anatolian people that were demolished culturally, socially and politically by coups and anti-democratic practices," says the singer-songwriter. It is also, she adds, the expression of “a modern-age traveller questioning what it would be like if it were another way, a time machine transporting back and forth through the ages; [and] the sensual relationship a woman fosters with her body, love and sexuality in a Middle Eastern geography at a time when sexual orientation is still being denied.” 

It’s an album that owes a debt to lockdown. Akyol describes the period as “an opportunity to rid myself of social fatigue.” It gave her “less noise, more inner peace, a chance to take a step back and observe toxic and unnecessary patterns, and to say goodbye to the ones that needed to go.” It was a time that also exposed her to the universal radiation field of boredom. “It is required to make space for boredom, to create something good out of it. I’ve known this since I was a child, and this time I truly had enough time to be bored out of my mind… Anadolu Ejderi is the outcome of all this.” 

Released in Turkey on her own label, Dunganga, and by Glitterbeat internationally, Akyol’s music is a striking example of the DIY aesthetic in operation. “Ever since I started,” she says, “I refused to work under the yoke of big labels. Nobody should feel entitled to tell me what kind of songs to make, what to wear, what to put in my videos. When I talk about DIY,” she adds, “I’m not exaggerating. We keep to this path, aiming to stay original and free.” 

While Anadolu Ejderi is a self-generated set of songs so distinctive it could stand on its own, Akyol is generous in naming her influences and inspirations: “Martin Denny, Bohren & der Club of Gore, Morphine, Müzeyyen Senar, Ratso, Devil’s Anvil, Gábor Szabó, Karen Dalton, Erkin Koray, Neşet Ertaş, David Bowie.” Out of these myriad influences emerge songs like the album closer, ‘Içinde Uyanıyoruz Hakikatin’ (We Are Waking Up in Reality), summoning up the shades of Syd Barrett and Brian Jones turned rich and strange, not as survivors, but as mariners lost overboard. “The album creates its own mythology,” says Akyol. Of the Anadolu of the album’s title, she says, “these lands are an ocean of cultures where civilisations upon civilisations lived and left their marks.” 

And while dragons are commonly a symbol of prosperity, abundance and good luck in the East, in the West their image darkens, symbolising scarcity and evil. Turkey, Istanbul and Gaye Su Akyol sit between East and West, and through the cracks in this ancient land riven by contemporary politics emerges the dragon energy of Anadolu Ejderi. Get it on your stereo and let it roar. 

Read the review of Gaye Su Akyol’s Anadolu Edjeri

This interview originally appeared in the January/February 2023 issue of Songlines. Never miss an issue – subscribe today