Cüneyt Sepetçi & Orchestra Dolapdere – Bahriye Ciftetellisi

LM Dupli-cation

Bahriye Ciftetellisi is the fourth release on Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost(AKA A Hawk and a Hacksaw)’s new label LM Duplication, which is proving to be prolific considering it only gave birth to its first release a year ago.

From the moment the percussion kicks in on the first track after Cüneyt Sepetçi’s clarinet solo “Bahriye Cif Ciftetellisi” proves to be an aggressive assault to the ears that doesn’t relent until the albums end. The patterns of the florescent pink and blue on the album’s kaleidoscope cover complements the hectic aural spirals that whirl your brain up into a frenzy. This is music to be listened to on horseback while being chased by a gang of thugs through the busy streets of Istanbul.

The playing on this record is so sharp that it hits a thousand nails dead on their heads at the same time. Such musicianship suggests a lineage of musicians in the family, which is confirmed when reading the detailed liner notes:

Our grandfathers came from the old country and brought these songs from Thessalonki
– Cüneyt Sepetçi

Sepetçi is based in the Dolapere district of Istanbul, which is largely populated by the Roma of the city, where Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost managed to track him down.

On the days when Cüneyt is not working, you can find him in the café, drinking chai, and waiting for the highest bidder to hire for the night’s concert. We (A Hawk and A Hacksaw) met Cüneyt in the summer of 2012, and agreed to get the under-recorded master into a studio and release his first album…
– Jeremy Barnes

Sepetçi is backed up by the Orchestra Dolapdere, which is said to contain some of the finest musicians of Istanbul. These musicians’ bread and butter are weddings and family gatherings that have been regularly occurring throughout the city for generations. No doubt the musicians must play at the weddings of the grand-children that their grandfathers performed at, for the bride’s grandfathers weddings. What? Now there’s a sentence to get your head around.

We music writers really love to pin a music to a place. I guess it means we can hold it down and so navigate our way around the cultural globe. So is this ‘Turkish music’? Yer, of sorts, but we’re dealing with Roma people so there is influence from Albania, Macedonia, Spain and elsewhere that have inspired them. I can’t help wondering that in part, they must be influenced by the music of their clients’ cultural background. Where this clinging to genres and obsession with pinning music to a place falls down is, in the fact that any culture is perpetually moving and growing so you constantly have to rewrite things. I guess we humans are always moving on, no matter what we do.

This album will certainly get you moving. If you think A Hawk and A Hacksaw can hit it right where you need it, get ready for blast off with Cüneyt Sepetçi and Orchestra Dolapdere.

-Harry Wheeler-