Soundplaces

Derya Türkan is a Turkish player of the Klasik kemençe, a three-string fiddle played on the lap, while Sokratis Sinopoulos is a Greek player of the politiki lyra, actually the same instrument. The name means lyra of the town (poli), in this case Constantinople. This album features poetic duets of the two instruments, sometimes imitating each other, sometimes one plucking or bowing an accompaniment to the other. Each of the eight tracks is named after a place – ‘Istanbul’, ‘Izmir’, ‘Cyclades’ – and so, appropriate for these times, it’s a virtual journey. Most of the places have a shared Greek and Turkish history, for instance ‘Tatavla’, a district of Istanbul (now Kurtuluş) where many Greeks lived until the population exchange of 1922 when they were replaced by Turks resettled from Greece. It’s a meditative and enthralling exploration of a shared culture. The players use existing tunes as a foundation and then improvise around them. So ‘Istanbul’ is based on an Ottoman peşrev (prelude) composed by a Greek; ‘Mitilini’ uses a love song from that Greek island, quite well-known in Greece; ‘Cyclades’ is a composition by Derya Türkan in Aegean style; while ‘Konya’ uses a Mevlevi melody. Final track ‘Fernelmont’ is a town in Belgium where they recorded the album. Intimate and intelligent music with history behind it.