Turkish Psych/Prog appreciation thread

Opened this thread to continue the appreciation started by a dear friend, Dervisan, almost a decade ago (link a couple of paragraphs below). Back then only a handful of Turkish Psych/Prog acts were featured in the site (Dervisan mentioned Asia Minor and Replikas only, although I'm sure Nekropsi was there even before those two, but I digress...) And today, though we have an impressive (!) list of 19 names, a majority of these are relatively new bands, and only a handful (literally) come from the glorious seventies. (To my credit, I worked hard to get most of the "classic period" bands & artists, around the same time he started the thread)

Erkin Koray, Baris Manco and Mogollar are the acts added to the site after my attempts, by sending samples to genre teams (sadly, the 3rd name of the Turkish "big three", Cem Karaca, wasn't considered progressive enough by the relevant teams back then. I'll give you some samples, if you want to decide for yourselves!) I had no involvement in the addition of 21. Peron (which was a pleasant surprise today, as I checked the country list) and Asia Minor (who made music in the late seventies, and may barely be considered a classic era Turkish psych/Prog band; they were never popular in Turkey, and in fact may more precisely be considered a French/Turkish band, seeing that two of the four members were French, and even Turkish members residing in France... Well, the name itself is an allusion to Turkey, so...)

Anyway, there were surely more musicians making music in the same vein with Manço, Koray, Mogollar, etc. (like the above mentioned Cem Karaca, who also happened to record and tour with Mogollar for one and a half years!) Most of the output by these bands/artists are a far cry from prog, as defined here in progarchives, (especially their post-1980 work) so I won't even try to get any of them included, with the possible exception of Cem Karaca. But still, I'd like to provide samples from their most exciting period, namely 1973-1978. When you go through the band histories (most of the time even the most independent artist had a band attached to his name, such as Manço's "Kurtalan Ekspres" and Cem Karaca's "Dervisan") you'll see the same musicians joined and left these bands over and over again. Baris Manço's Kurtalan Ekspres is a good example, comparable to Zappa's Mothers around the same time! You may listen to a keyboard solo, or a bass riff in a song by one of these artists, and later notice a very similar style in a (seemingly) unrelated artist's song from a couple of years later, and it turns out both were played by the same musician 

I'd like to start with Edip Akbayram, because I've been obsessed with his music for a couple of weeks now, and also I'm desperate to find out about a riff played in the intro of one of his songs. There are at least two such examples, one of which caused me to find out about Yes (yeah, that Yes, the classic Symphonic Prog band!) back in the day. Namely, the guitar riff in the intro to Akbayram's "Ince Ince Bir Kar Yagar" is lifted from Roundabout's famous guitar interlude, which turns into the part "Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down..." The friend who first pointed this out to me (when I didn't have the slightest idea about Yes, and other prog bands for that matter, with the exception of Jethro Tull) also played me the other song from which Akbayram's band lifted an intro, but for some reason I didn't keep that in mind. Now I'm perplexed about it! Hopefully there's someone who can recognize it. Like WalterDigsTunes figured out by himself how they lifted the riff from Roundabout, and a hi-hat rhythm from "Theme from Shaft"!

If my remarks in the above paragraph don't make much sense, please check out my messages in this earlier thread (I wanted to bump that one, but unfortunately it is locked...):

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55223&PID=3148945#3148945

(this link goes to the most relevant post I wrote)

Here are some delightful samples by Edip Akbayram from the heyday of Turkish psych/prog scene (locally called Anadolu Pop):

(Akbayram's band was called "Dostlar" (friends), as you may notice in some of the videos)

Daglar Dagladi Beni (1974)

please especially note the bass riff intro to this song; I'm pretty certain this is the other song whose intro was lifted from a western band's music, but I can't say for sure. It may as well be one of the songs below, so please let me know if you notice something familiar 

Degmen Benim Gamli Yasli Gönlüme (1973)

Kükredi Cimenler (1972)

This is one of his earliest songs (his second or third single), by which he entered a song contest (and won, if I recall correctly). He hadn't started to work with Dostlar yet. And the intro I'm looking for is not in this one, but still, the orchestral intro to this song may be quoted from a western work. Check out.

Kahpe Felek (1976)

One of the best songs from this period. Has an elaborate intro, which may have been "inspired" by a western rock song 

Here are a couple of other goodies, starting with the aforementioned "Yes-inspired" song:

Ince Ince Bir Kar Yagar (1974)

16 seconds into the song, you'll notice Roundabout's famous guitar interlude, which turns into the part "Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching down..." (in the original, of course!)

And as WalterDigsTunes mentioned in the other thread, "Theme from Shaft" influence (if not a direct quote) is also obvious in the same part, at least the hi-hat rhythm... 

And I present you my personal favorites, as I mentioned in the thread from beyond time 

Kolum Nerden Aldin Zinciri (1975)

Mehmet Emmi (1975)

I just love the synth solo in the middle

and a fan favorite: Garip (1974)

features Murat Ses of "Mogollar" fame on keyboards. For a short while, Ses was the driving force behind Dostlar, just as he was behind Mogollar when he was a member, unfortunately that period lasted short and yielded only one single.

Interesting info: when Akbayram released a re-recorded best-of style album in mid-'90's, his arranger used Murat Ses's partitions for this song verbatim, so that I thought they used the first version of the song instead of re-recording! "Dostlar" ceased to exist by then.

All songs are from singles, as much of the music produced in Turkey back then were released as singles. Albums as the main media of music prevailed much later. Akbayram, for instance, released one compilation totally from singles (1974) and one studio album during this period (in 1977) but even then most of the songs included were scrapped singles, and 3 of the 10 songs were taken from published singles so far (two of them being Mehmet Emmi and Kolum Nerden Aldin Zinciri)!

I can provide line up details for each song, but for now this would be a futile attempt since non-Turks here (and even many Turks!) are not acquainted with the names anyway. One exception might be Ozkan Ugur of "Mazhar Fuat Ozkan" fame, who plays alongside Murat Ses in Garip. Both musicians played in previous year's incarnation of Kurtalan Ekspres, in two singles.

Still, feel free to ask for details, and music in similar vein (for instance, more Edip Akbayram goodies). I'm hoping to introduce other (relatively) obscure Turkish psych/prog musicians in this thread. When I say "relatively", I mean many of them are actually well known here in Turkey, but not by this type of music! For instance, check out Ersen (who also worked with Mogollar in two different instances) and Fikret Kizilok (who's better known for his Turkish folk ballads from the beginning of his career, and romantic acoustic songs from the latter part of it, but not for the 4 progressive rock masterpieces he produced with his short-lived band "Tehlikeli Madde (hazardous material)" in 1974!)