Turkish singer-songwriter Gaye Su Akyol was born January 30, 1985, in Istanbul, Turkey. She grew up in a cosmopolitan environment, in a place where the Middle East meets Eastern Europe. Notably, Gaye listened to Anatolian music icon Selda Bağcan as well as grunge rocker Kurt Cobain in equal measure.
The daughter of acclaimed Turkish painter Muzaffer Akyol, Gaye earned a degree in social anthropology and worked as an artist before creating music became her primary goal. She experimented, feeling her way towards her vision. And when she met the band Bubituzak, they were on the same wavelength. They understood what she was doing; they became part of her art. Together they recorded her debut, Develerle Yaşıyorum, in 2013, following it with acclaimed, masked performances in Turkey and at festivals across Europe.
“I love masks,” said Gaye in a jovial mood. “They bring mystery and fun, flexibility and a psychedelic aesthetic. Since Bubituzak are already a band, we want to use masks to cover their faces in a mysterious and symbolic way.”
“It’s a cliché, but the city is a bridge that combines cultures, and that’s very true in music, especially the Greek influence,” Gaye explained. “When I was young, we visited Anatolia every year. I had the chance to observe and realize the different perspectives and practices of cultures. That made me feel closer to the diversity of Anatolian civilizations.”
“When I heard Nirvana’s Nevermind for the first time, my mind blew up. I discovered other Seattle bands, then people like Nick Cave, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, and Einstürzende Neubaten. A bit later, I heard Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.” The dark, mellow mood of the music, the use of the instruments and the vocal technique of Grace Slick greatly inspired me and led me into psychedelia and then surf bands. What they all did seemed to fit with older Turkish singers I loved, like Selda Bağcan and Müzeyyen Senar.”
With the release of her second album, “Hologram Ĭmparatorluğu” (2016), Gaye Su Akyol established herself as one of the most attractive young voices in Turkey. Her work as a singer-songwriter, producer, and audiovisual conceptualist navigated simultaneously between a historical past, a hyper-connected present, and a future without established scripts.
Following the widespread critical acclaim for “Hologram Ĭmparatorluğu,” Gaye and her outstanding band spent 18 months travelling throughout Turkey, Europe and the Middle and Far East sharing with audiences a vibrant mix of raki laced traditional balladry, retro surf rock and psychedelia.
Her third album, Istikrarlı Hayal Hakikattirm, which translates as Consistent Fantasy is Reality, is a deeply poetic album; a very personal and political album, a project that explores the heart of our inexplicable experience in the contemporary world. It was her second album with the Glitterbeat label, a visceral and panoramic record.
Gaye Su Akyol said about Istikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir: “Consistent Fantasy is Reality” is the third album in my discography. Just like the previous two, it is a completely independent and liberated album that embraces a “DIY” [do it yourself] philosophy, and a revolutionary album which no capitalist or top-down imposed obligations can restrain or contaminate.
“Like my second album, it is published by Dunganga Records (our own record company) in Turkey and by Glitterbeat worldwide.
“In terms of its philosophy, lyrics, music and motto, this album is the dream of pure freedom, of showing the courage to be yourself, of looking at the culture I was born into without alienation, a “dreaming practice” propounded into a country and world that is increasingly turning inward and becoming a conservatized prison.
“Musically the album combines influences from the Anatolian Pop/Anatolian Rock genre that emerged in Turkey during the 60s and the 70s with Turkish classical music scales and vocal aesthetics, and various subgenres of Rock (psychedelic, post-punk, surf), bringing together strong ballads, Turkish folk tunes, the conventional guitar-bass-drums trio with percussion, joined by violin, ud, cumbush, and – as new additions that the previous albums did not have – baglama (Turkish native instrument), electronic beats and wind instruments like saxophone and trumpet, all together making up a very rich instrumental palette.
“With this album I pursued new sounds in the deep waters of this geography, dug up the manifestation of my experiences, all the music, the people, the pain, the dreams and countries I have heard and was touched by, followed the footsteps of a personal archeology and tried to add my lost territories to these. As in my previous albums I wrote all the music and lyrics, except for one song, a cover version from one of the most famous and important Turkish musicians Barış Manço – who is widely known for his Anatolian psychedelic compositions. I was involved in all stages of production, arrangement and recording as co-producer, and in the visual language and graphics of the album as the art director.
“Although I did not try to emphasize this aspect in regard to my previous albums, I came to be fully convinced that the existence and power of women needs to be specifically pointed out in a world that is becoming almost caricatured with masculine displays of power, where everyone except whoever is holding power is deemed invisible. As a woman born and raised in Turkey, who makes her own music, who created a playground outside the masculine system by founding her own record company, who participates in every stage of this work from creation to production in a masculine dominated geography and an ever conservatized world, I think it is necessary to make these stories of “consistent dreaming” visible and I hope to inspire other women and people who are producing and claiming their own dreams. In this sense this is an extremely feminist, revolutionary and idealist album.
“About the name and the content of the album; there are two important facts, the first one being the physical reality: In a difficult country like Turkey, bordering the Middle East, Europe and Russia, in an atmosphere that is increasingly conservative and in a world that contributes to this darkness with its own chaos and power struggles, I believe that we need to create a counter reality in order to challenge organized evil and the horrible reality it creates, and the strongest option here is “consistent dreaming”.
“And the other fact is a personal awakening: The materialist world view attributes supreme meanings and values to the confirmable, accumulated world that it calls “real,” while almost ignoring the enormous power, amazing nature and value of dreams. My superpower as a child was dreaming (almost like the other children) and although I nearly forgot it for a while, I remembered my real power eventually. There is nothing as spectacular and beautiful as a free mind… As soon as I realized that the only difference between dreams and reality was “consistency” in my mind, the universe became a better place. This is where this album is coming from.
“On the cover of the album, there is a “fantasy world” that promises whatever you fantasize constantly becomes your reality. We designed a “non-existent creature in any culture” with a majestic, glittered body and with a holy light on its head that symbolizes that the dreams of the individual are one’s holy key to open new chapters in life.
“On the back of the cover there is an ancient motif called “eli belinde” from Anatolian culture. Eli belinde (Turkish for “hands on hips”) is a motif of a hands-on-hips female figure. It is widely used on kilims. It is a “matriarchal symbol” that symbolizes feminine power, wealth, fertility, good fortune, happiness…etc. But in this case, the reasons to put it on the back cover are the feminine power she carries and the polysemous structure of the word “fertilization” which I take to mean “the fertility of a free mind and fruitfulness of dreaming.”
“We are masses moving within a huge chaos. We are the disaster seeds of a cultural collapse which infiltrates the human mind and inhibits dreams. In an age when we are forced to forget dreaming, as societies we become weak signals of the barren mind. We are descendants of unqualified herds that follow grunts. We are the miserable, standardized, un-rebellious and unfounded robots of the new world.
“What could be the one thing that could separate us from this herd, these masses, these crises of ambition ground down by the things we memorize?
“This album is in search of the great crisis of existence, the assorted peculiarities that you are subjected to when you refuse to get used to and are alienated by things such as war, or death, a sudden separation forever from a loved one, dreams for instance, the nature of species, what we look for in this weird planet, what we are not able to find, what we call real and what we turn down as dreams.
“Dreams keep you awake, and it is time to wake up!“
The lineup on Istikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir included Gaye Su Akyol on vocals, percussion, electronics; Ali Güçlü Şimşek on electric & acoustic guitar, backing vocals; Görkem Karabudak on bass and acoustic guitar, keyboard, electronics, backing vocals; Ediz Hafızoğlu on drums. Guests: İlhan Erşahin on saxophone; Barlas Tan Özemek on classical guitar (şahmeran); Ahmet Ayzit on violin, ud, electro saz, cumbush; Ismail Darıcı on percussion; and Oğuz Can Bilgin on trumpet.
Gaye Su Akyol performed songs from her new album at famed world music event WOMAD Charlton Park festival, on Saturday, July 28, 2018, in the Big Red Tent.
Gaye was also part of the influential world music expo, WOMEX 2018 Official Showcase. She performed on Saturday, October, 27 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
Gaye Su Akyol provided insightful details about her fourth album: “Anadolu Ejderi” (Anatolian Dragon) is the fourth album in my discography. As on the other albums, it is a completely independent DIY story that draws its strength from its freedom and lack of accountability to anyone. It is released by our boutique record label Dunganga Records in Turkey and Glitterbeat Records worldwide, as were the albums Hologram İmparatorluğu and İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir.
“This album is the awakening of a mythological dragon from deep sleep. The simultaneous transformation of millions of cells into an organism, waiting for a sign in its cave. A resistance that reiterates that the only remedy against pure evil is collective action, in a fairy tale where everyone has to learn to be their own superhero, a journey with a submarine company in the ocean of memories of a society whose memory has been stolen. It is a fiction of truth in response to the question of “what would it be like otherwise” arising from the destroyed cities and the cultures that were almost destroyed together with the city, the meanings that are intertwined, and the ideas that cannot be discussed and matured. In a political climate where a woman’s commitment to her passion, to falling in love, to her sexual identity is revolutionary enough, she is deeply passionate and able to express her love freely.
“A sonic expansion and invention, a weave where sounds, words, and notions that are not so predictable, come together to mingle and dance in new ways.
“Musically, this album was an adventure for me to go beyond the known limits and pursue brand-new sounds, in this sense, I can say that it is my most liberated and authentic production ever. I felt like a scientist as it turned into a chemical reaction that expanded the boundaries of the genres I was influenced by, Anatolian Pop Folk, Classical Turkish Music, and Turkish Psychedelic Rock with dark beats, post punk, jazz, surf, stoner rock and touches of disco, and brought them together with brand-new genres; in addition to these, it is possible to follow the traces of hip hop and industrial rock in “Biz Ne Zaman Düşman Olduk” or “Bu Izdırabın Panzehiri,” 90s Turkish pop, Middle Eastern influences in “Vurgunum Ama Acelesi Yok,” and grunge in “Yaram Derin Derin Kanar.”
“There are also innovations in terms of instrumentation; the guitar, bass and drum trio are accompanied by violin, ud but also traditional Turkish instruments such as electro baglama, cümbüş, sazbüş.
“So what’s hidden in the DNA of this rock’n’roll rocket coming up in its cape of passionate love and rebellion? What’s under the skin of the fierce yet restorative yearning held for another, in a country where it’s a luxury and a political stance to even fall in love?
“Rimbaud, in his ‘Letters of the Seer’ writes “I is another.” The other is again ‘itself’. All roads lead here. Aşık Veysel says “Your beauty isn’t worth a dime, if it weren’t for my love.” A new state of being, constantly changing in the mirror of another, transforming, rotating, becoming.
“The other in which one goes searching for one’s own cave, one’s place in neverland (one’s existence in the land of nil), one’s fears, one’s lost goddess, both feminine and masculine, and a proof of being one with the universe; is that other in fact one’s own self? Looking into the mirror, you tell your story. Does reality commence in that moment?
“I am back with a meteor of fresh Turkish psychedelia, fused with my own musical and philosophical journey spiced with dance, pain, hope, blood, sweat and tears, crowded with herds of wild horses.”
In January 2023, “Anadolu Ejderi” hit number one at the Transglobal World Music Chart and the World Music Charts Europe.
(headline image: Gaye Su Akyol – Photo by Aylin Güngör)
Discography:
Develerle Yaşıyorum (Olmadı Kaçarız, 2014)
Hologram İmparatorluğu (Dunganga Records in Turkey and Glitterbeat Records worldwide, 2016)
İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir (Dunganga Records in Turkey and Glitterbeat Records worldwide, 2018)
Anadolu Ejderi (Dunganga Records in Turkey and Glitterbeat Records worldwide, 2022)
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.