Tags: European

Review: We are extremely thankful of the existence of Altin Gun, a Dutch band who focus their efforts on playing Turkish folk/psychedelic rock. Three albums so far have served to establish their sprawling sound. Their latest, Ask, does particularly well to chuck additional funk and disco edges into the mix - but contemporaneously comes On, a reissue of their debut LP released in 2018. In reissuing it, French label Le Vinyl Club document the band's eureka moment and subsequent splash onto the scene that eventually won them a Grammy. Beautiful cuts such as 'Goca Dunya' hear well-polished takes on trad Turkish folk, but with an added energy and verve brought to the fore by not only an electrifying backing band, but a whopping two vocalists, Merve Dasdemir and Erdinc Ecevit Yildiz.

Review: Belgian-Moroccan singer Aicha Haskal is at the heart of this fabulous project which sees her joining creative forces with super-talented musicians from the Belgian scene. Between them, the group has a mad diverse spread of backgrounds and influences which means their music too is broad in scope - psychedelic sounds and funky grooves, Arabic melodies and European rhythms all feature in this album as do rap and parlando. Egyptian poet Abdelhamid Farag penned their first single 'Ghalat' and now this album expands around that with music that fights the oppression of women and fights for revolution.