Derin Derin

Turkish psychedelic rock from the 60s seems to have been reborn from the ashes lately, with a new generation of psych rockers, be it Altın Gün, Gaye Su Akyol or Elektro Hafiz. The pioneers of the revival, Baba Zula, have just released Derin Derin (Deep Deeper), which establishes the band as the missing link between Turkish psych, Krautrock and dub-wise stylings.

The album, which arose out of music Baba Zula were asked to do for a documentary about falcons, finds the band taking wing in a collection of songs that is more experimental than ever. New is the combination of electro saz, played by frontman Osman Murat Ertel and electro oud, played by Periklis Tsoukalas, a relative newcomer to the band. Nobody else has ever mixed electronic versions of these two instruments and their frequencies jive well with each other.

‘Kurt Kapma’ (Eagle Got Wolf) is a track that most vividly suggests the inspiration for the album, with a wall of sound, layered with riffs and mixed with howling and screechy sound effects that mimic the sounds of hawks and wolves. Other tracks mix twisted psychedelia with mangled saz playing. The multilingual lyrics are delivered in a blurry, distorted manner, full of reverb and bends, mixed with effects – a style that Ertel calls ‘Oriental dub’.