Tuz (Salt)

Cengiz Özkan's eighth album for Kalan, Tuz (Salt), is a lovely collection of ten Turkish folk songs. The album is in the living tradition of Anatolian bards and is tastefully arranged for a small, mostly acoustic ensemble (rather let down by an electric bass, though it is discrete). Both in the unprojected vocal style and mellow arrangements, it's very much a studio album. The quality of Özkan's voice and singing makes this more than a generic collection. He has a gentle, smokey, lived-in voice that imbues the texts with mood and feeling, while the self-accompanying bağlama and cura are beautiful, whether subdued or sounding a ringing counterpoint. The whole is typical of Anatolian bard style yet doesn’t sound hackneyed thanks to the sincerity with which it's sung and played – each song sounding like Özkan's own story. The secular lyrics are about love and death; unfortunately, they’re not included in the liner notes (though they are included with the songs on YouTube, albeit only in Turkish). For non-Turkish speakers, having both the lyrics and translations would greatly help enter the poetic worlds of these songs.