DOST 1

Derya Yıldırım doesn’t like to be pigeonholed. “I do what comes out of me. And if that is for some ‘psychedelic rock’ then so be it,” she says. Oft compared to Turkish neo-psych rockers Altın Gün, Yıldırım was at the right place at the right time when the Anatolian psych revival hit. Here we have Yıldırım and Grup Şimşek’s second LP, DOST 1 (Friend) – six tracks of groovy, crawling, ruminative Turkish covers mixed with original compositions. The most compelling track is ‘The Trip’, in which traditional saz gives way to a cascade of explosive, flailing, wah-wah guitar.

Yıldırım often claims to be influenced by Selda Bağcan’s political ballads seething with righteous anger. However, although one might argue that enough injustice abounds to fuel original protest songs of raw power, Yıldırım, with her sweetly innocent voice and sparing bağlama licks, more often than not opts for a wistful lyricism augmented with flashes of trilling, microtonal synth riffs that are by turns futuristic and nostalgic of another era. Ultimately, one has the feeling of listening to something that could have been cut 50 years ago, and yet in Yıldırım’s hands the material still seems fresh. And it doesn’t bother Yıldırım that her audience is largely incapable of understanding what she is singing about. “Learn Turkish,” she says. Take it or leave it, seems to be her prevailing attitude. This reviewer is all for taking it.