If you have eclectic musical tastes, or would like to acquire some, check out the Wax Poetic trilogy: Istanbul, Copenhagen and Brasil from Nublu Records.
Saxophonist/keyboard-player/composer Ilhan Ersahin, the "organizer" of the albums, set out to explore and extend the dissemination of musical styles and cultures over thousands of years to the present. He has done this by journeying to Europe, Asia and South America to create a trilogy of albums based in three geographical and cultural centres, employing "a shifting configuration of personnel and instrumentation". The result is as close as I've heard to a musical distillation of all that is interesting about truly cosmopolitan, truly urban 21st-century locales, whilst avoiding sentimentality and "world music" clichés.
Istanbul opens with "Dreamland", in which Pink Floyd meets temple singing meets street bazaar meets blues dance meets underground dance club. If you think that shouldn't work, I think you'd be right. It shouldn't. But it does. It has to be heard to be believed. "Striptease in Istanbul" is a fusion of trance, dance, trip-hop, dub, ambient and something else. The "something else" was partly defined for me by my charming lunch companion last week who, having been left in my car for a few minutes with the track "Hoppola" playing, announced, "I don't know what that woman is singing about, but it's filthy."
The female vocals on the album are reminiscent of - and easily as good as - Bjork's, but with an added sensuality and soulfulness, employed to great effect on the track "Istanbul Can Be Dub". "Watching Me Watching You", with its slightly unnerving speech samples had me racking my brains for the source of my feeling of déjà vu, and finally took me back to the opening of Kate Bush's "Waking the Witch".
Copenhagen delivers global eclecticism with a more Western, rock-based flavour, which is less to my taste, but still with the same level of quality, and may well be more accessible and appealing to the mainstream US and European markets as well as those drawn to Indie and avant-garde sounds. The opening track, "U and I" manages to reconcile bitter, cynical lyricism with stadium rock, reggae, and experimental pop. "Under the Sun", with its languid female vocals and haunting melodic hooks is reminiscent of the Stranglers in the later, more reflective phase. "Beauty" occupies the interface between Portishead and Tricky, reconciling the ethereal qualities of the former with the harsh lyrical realities and more brutal bass-lines of the latter. NYC is a triumph of unlikely fusions. Think the soundtracks to Twin Peaks in harmony with back-alley blues and reggae; become confused; listen to the track; become enlightened.
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