Kurdish Alevi Laments

This is a tough listen, like eavesdropping on private, tragic moments in the life of a family. It's made even tougher because it inevitably brings to mind the recent explosions of violence in southeastern Turkey. Household sounds, women and children sobbing, and choked voices singing in free verse, at times answering each other in turn. The laments tell the story, virtues and misfortunes of the dead: sickness, despair and emigration; elders mourning for the young. But at the same time water, birds, phones ringing and hushed conversations are aural evidence that life does go on. Recorded by poet and folklorist Bese Aslan (who also put together the rich liner notes in three languages) in the area of the inner Toros mountains of the Turkish province of Maraş, these laments are a specific, particular feature of the Alevi/Kurdish culture and use variations on a unique melody. The words are improvised on the spot to alleviate grief – every one is unique, and will never be sung again. They sound like the burial rites described in the poems of Homer and in the Greek tragedies; these intimations of mortality come at us from time immemorial. They are reminders that each of us has an unsung lament but will never be able to hear it. Chilling, compelling and raw.