Neva/Harmony

A decade or so ago a Turkish singer covering songs from the Balkans to Armenia through Greece and Turkey would have been an exciting prospect. But, given the wealth of material available to the listener today, it is a tall order for a young singer to create a remarkable album based on such a wide geographical area. ‘Durme ’ is a case in point, with voice and guitar directly imitating the style of the classic recordings of Sephardic repertoire from Istanbul made by singers Janet and Jak Esim with guitarist Erkan Oğur.

Olcay Bayir is of Kurdish Turkish background and she hails from a musical family in the ancient city of Gaziantep, in south-east Turkey. It's the Turkish section of the CD that stands out, despite featuring the slowest rendition of ‘Melamet Hırkası’ I have ever heard; a deeper exploration of the Gaziantep repertoire might have produced more gripping results. She is a young artist, and her musical talents are first class. But we live in a world in which you can easily listen to singers such as Savina Yannatou or bands like Kardeş Turkü ler performing similar repertoire – or the late Selim Sesler soloing on ‘Penceresi Yola Karşı’.

To make an impact Olcay Bayir has to dig deeper into the material and deeper into herself.