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them. At first, listening to this album was a bit like one of those banquets where the tasty courses keep on coming but you get too full to appreciate them after a while. It was as though they’d thrown open an atlas, stuck a pin in the page at random and sung from whichever tradition they’d happened to land on: China, Bulgaria, the Arab world, Congo, Armenia... then conjured up touches of reg- gae, blues, folk or Indian influences, with just a little percussion, some muted piano or the pluck of a lone stringed instrument. However on subsequent listens I experienced no audio indigestion. Sometimes the vocals get a little too wild for their own good, although that’s sort of the point I suppose and this is a highly entertaining collection of full-throated har- mony singing and creative invention. Again, hear a track on fRoots 38.


www.lechantdumonde.com Jamie Renton


KARDES TÜRKÜLER & ARTO TUNÇBOYACIYAN Çocuk Haklı Kalan 8 691834 009370


Kardes Türküler are Turkey’s flagship roots music group, their name translates inelegantly as ‘Frater-


nity Songs’ reflecting their commitment to progressive social values and to performing music from all cultures found in Turkey (including Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Alevi, Arme- nian, Arabic, Laz, and Roma) and several con- nected cultures (Circassian and Macedonian for example). Nothing dull and worthy here: they are a no-holds-barred musically vibrant assault, often with massed percussion and voices, the sort of thing that can make hairs stand up and adrenalin surge. They can move from collective full power to the subtle ties of individual songs – they have five exceptional vocalists here, plus guests too, who take turns to deliver lead vocals – with adventurous instrumental arrangements and melodies drenched and dripping with colour.


Çocuk Haklı, their fifth album is a play on words: the child drawn on the cover is paint- ing an ‘H’ to transform Çocuk aklı (child’s mind) to Çocuk Haklı (the child is right). Chil- dren being open to the world and other peo- ple, adventurous and questioning, parallel the group and Arto’s approach and philoso- phy. This album adds new cultures (Chechen and Yezidi) to Kardes Türküler’s scope, and marks a departure in having many self- composed songs in addition to their tradi- tional sources. It’s maybe their strongest and most wide-ranging yet, sonically hetero - genous too. My appreciation of it has grown and grown over six months: there’s a lot to it and it continues to yield. Arto’s unique sounds and arrangements are a big plus, and singer Vedat Yıldırım has really come into his own as a songwriter here (he also sings Ara Dinkjian’s melody for Zamanın Bahçesinde beautifully amongst his other great vocals).


So many strong tracks out of the album’s 16: Feryal Öney’s wondrous voice is heard at its extraordinary powerful best on Sevdayla Uslandı Gönlüm and its most lyrical on the gorgeous Chechen melody Daymohk. There are songs about a child Hekim selling goods on Istanbul’s streets starting life already 1-0 down, 1-0 (hear it on this issue’s fRoots 38 compilation); about a child Nazar without family being cleared out of the historic Rom Sulukule area and trying with persistence to hold onto a life in a new area – Nazar; a song referring to a universal kids’ toy – Yoyo – with some Arabic lyrics, making the point that stone-throwing Palestinian kids can be por- trayed in the Turkish media as resisting by natural uncomplicated instinct, whereas a Kurdish kid doing likewise will be demonised,


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