Künh

Hailing from Istanbul, composer and musician Nağme Yarkın is a player of the klasik kemençe – the three-stringed bowed lyre used in Turkish classical music. She's previously fused traditional Anatolian music with jazz but, for this new project, she's written 12 instrumentals, which she says are the first ever recorded examples of polyphonic music for kemençe. That sounds like a grand claim considering it simply means she's used overdubs to create trio, quartet and quintet arrangements. But it's undoubtedly a neat idea. By itself, the kemençe has a mournful tone that speaks a great weight of lonely sorrow, an essential characteristic of Turkish classical music, which is accentuated by the instrument's rasping, ghostly timbre. Yarkın's arrangements, however, stack up sumptuous harmonies that luxuriate in warmth and richness. Some pieces sound like variations on straight-laced Western chamber music while others add jazzy blue notes into the mix. Percussionist Fahrettin Yarkın adds clopping hand drums and tabla-like boings to a handful of tracks. But it's Yarkın's expressive lyricism on her instrument of choice that carries the session. Some of the best performances happen when she puts aside the gimmicky multi-tracking and simply plays, eliciting swooning microtones articulated with a haunting delicacy.