Dewrane Dewrane (2014)
5 tracks, 62 minutes
This is a difficult one to talk about, because I’m not sure really where my version of this came from. Well, I do, it was a CD-r in a big box of other CD-rs, but I mean, I don’t think this is a real album, probably more likely to be a sampler. I can’t even find all of the tracks online anywhere. So what I’ll do is send you to a couple of his other albums on Spotify: Dewrane Dewrane (2013) and Daweta Gel, Vol. 1 (2016), and if you want to take a listen to my version, I can send it to you, just let me know.
As you can tell by the vagueness of that introduction, I really don’t know much about Burhan Toprak, or this music in general. As far as I can tell, Burhan and his group Roj Müzik play Kurdish wedding music in Turkey. The repertoire is all based on traditional songs and melodies, but they’ve made it super poppy. That means lots of cheesy synth chords and drum machines. But what I find really enticing about this music is Toprak's electric bağlama. The instrument already has such a lovely sound in its acoustic form, with its double courses of strings, open tuning and microtonal frets; the electric version, played with loads of distortion, adds an extra dimension again.
The recorded work is one thing, but I would love to attend a wedding with this guy. Check out this footage from an event in 2016:
Without all the way-too-cheesy add-ons of the recorded stuff, the ensemble of vocals, electric bağlama and drums is much more exciting, and allows Toprak to show off his skills more too. I’m quite amazed at how civilised the dancing stays to be honest – I reckon I’d be whipped into a frenzy in the right surroundings.
I know that in the past few years, Roj Müzik have been trying to break out onto the international scene, performing in concert settings for world music audiences as well as at Kurdish and Turkish weddings, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be going too well for them. In fact, the only update I can find in English on the web was from 2017, when the group were apparently invited to perform at SXSW but then denied the necessary visas. I really hope that Roj Müzik and Burhan Toprak do end up making some in-roads within the international scene soon. I’d love to see them live – and learn more about them and their music!
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