In the mid-1960s, a new generation of young Turkish musicians combined Western pop music with traditional Anatolian folk melodies and instrumentation to forge the home-grown phenomenon of Anadolu Pop. But that was just the beginning. Through the second half of that turbulent decade, and on into the 1970s, Turkish rock warped and transformed, striking out into wilder and stranger territory. Fuelled by the psychedelic revolution and played out over a backdrop of intense cultural, social and political turmoil, the new Turkish sounds evolved from acid-rock and Prog, through electronic experimentation and on into the fringes of disco.
Anadolu Psych tells the story of a musical movement that was brought to a sudden end by a repressive right-wing coup in 1980, largely forgotten and only recently being rediscovered by Western crate-diggers. It’s a tale of larger-than-life musical pioneers with intertwined careers, raging political passions and visionary ideas ripe for rediscovery.
