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CD Review
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Santa Fe New Mexican, CD Review >>
This is an unusual, beautiful album by Mercan Dede, a Turkish musician and devotee of Sufism who plays with dervish musicians around the world. He also is Arkin Alien, DJ working in hard techno beats. The combination of instrument, voice, and electronics on this CD is mesmerizing. It opens with "Ab-I Ru," a haunting melody played by Hugh Marsh in slippery fashion on the electric violin, with Goksel Baktagir on the beautifully tinkly, harplike quanun (plucked zither). Water sounds herald "Ab-I Zen," and, in fact, the entire album, recorded in Dede's Istanbul home overlooking the Bosphorus Strait, has a water theme. This song offers a simple, eerie, melodic line played by sitarist Sheema Mukherjee. Tracks five and six are the heart of Su. "Ab-I Beka," is contemplative in mood and boasts exquisite vocals by Susheela Raman of India. ''Ab-I Hayat" epitomizes the parts of the album that amount to fantastically rich trance music, played here on violin, guitar, trumpet, reed flute, and what sounds like didgeridoo but that instrument is not listed in the liner notes, so the weedy, growling sound must be one Dede produces under the "electronic sounds" umbrella. Dede composed most of the music on Su and plays reed flute on several tunes. Other collaborators on this multicolored musical journey include Tunisian singer Dhafer Youssef and Turkish rapper Ceza.
-Paul Weideman 05/27/05
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