On

On their debut album On, Altin Gun band what happens when you open doors between Turkish folk songs which were passed on from generation to generation on the one hand and a dirty blend of funk rhythms, wah-wah guitars and analogue organs on the other. The Amsterdammers who come from various backgrounds (Turkish but also Indonesian and Dutch) comfortably create their work in the adventurous no-man’s land that exists between these two worlds.

Older generations of Turkish musicians have also experimented with opening doors between previously unconnected sonic worlds. During the seventies, artists such as Baris Manço, Selda Bağcan and Erkin Koray practiced a way of songwriting and composing similar to Altin Gün’s. They took the music played during the festive occasions and serious formalities of their childhood, folk songs backed by a traditional Turkish string instrument called the saz. To this, they added the techniques and vibes of their times and the result then went on to become a distinct Turkish sound during 1972-1977 which even today still sounds rich, danceable and (alright then!) heavily mind bending.

The Altin Gün band members first encountered this music in various ways: through their upbringing, via friends or after finding life changing compilations in record shops. Their own personal discoveries eventually led them to collectively open doors to crowds everywhere across Europe, from the Into the Great Wide Open festival in Netherlands to Istanbul, from Ghent to Geneva and from Ravenna back to Amsterdam; people all across Europe fell in love with Altin Gün’s unusual combination of familiar sounds.