Direct-to-Disc Sessions

As well as being a pioneer of Turkish folk-jazz who played with Don Cherry, percussionist Okay Temiz is revered for his 1975 track ‘Denizaltı Rüzgârları’, a righteously deep groove that still regularly appears on hip compilations and at eclectic club nights. It's given a thorough going over on this wildly successful three-way collaboration between Temiz, young bağlama virtuoso Muhlis Berberoğlu and Turkish electro-acoustic jam-band trio Islandman. Here, Temiz's signature tune is drenched in cosmic keyboard whooshes and acid house burbles with Berberoğlu's tightly coiled saz adding a dark intensity. It's an intoxicating brew.

In fact, the whole set – recorded live in the studio in one take and cut directly to vinyl – proposes a convincing 21st-century update on the eternally rejuvenating Turkish folk tradition. Each track contains the kernel of a folk melody, each from a different part of Turkey, providing launching pads to deeply dosed jams. Sprightly octogenarian Temiz tinkers restlessly with small percussion items and flutes, occasionally deepening the rhythmic imperative with the tight squeak of a Brazilian cuíca – and, on tracks like ‘FİDAYDA’, a folk dance from Ankara, Berberoğlu unfurls bağlama variations which, backed by Islandman's propulsive vamps, suggest a mythic highway unrolling endlessly into the heart of Anatolia.