Yol＜限定盤/Gold Vinyl＞

On their second album, Gece, Altin Gun perfected their updated version of the Turkish psychedelia of the late 60s/early 70s. The group of musicians from Holland and Turkey gave familiar Turkish folk songs a gleaming upgrade that combined bouncy rhythms with soaring electric saz lines, heartfelt vocals, and an overall feel of psychedelic warmth that was at once comforting and thrillingly new. Not content to repeat themselves, the band altered the approach and sound on 2021s Yol in a couple important ways. Thanks to the global pandemic, they werent able to work together in a studio and instead traded ideas over email and shared files. As they sent demos around, more and more synths and drum machines ended up in use, and the feel of the record began to shift from the joyous explosion of sound of past albums to something more subdued and synth pop influenced. Many of the songs are built on icy keys instead of nimble basslines, a steady drum machine pulse takes the place of more flamboyant drumming, and there is a glossy sheen that coats the production like a plastic cover over a comfortably worn sofa. Its a little shocking the first time Ordunun Dereleri -- which has all the rain-streaked windshield melancholy of Chromatics -- plays, and a little disquieting how songs like Kesik Cayir or Kara Toprak replace the beating heart of a live band with something more machine-driven. Even tracks with some familiar psychedelic strut, like Sevda Olmasaydi or Hey Nari, have melancholy synths in the background bringing them down a notch emotionally. Considering the circumstances of the record and the general state of the world, its not too surprising that the record is a little more gloomy than the buoyant Gece was. The important thing here is that the band manage to pull off the adjustments very well and prove just as adept at tugging on heartstrings as they were at floating the listener on a cloud of joy. Also, its not all bummer tunes. The disco-fied Macka Yollari is a perfectly percolating dancefloor filler with some whiplash-fast saz riffing, Yekte is a rumbling jam that wouldnt have been out of place on Gece, and Yuce Dağ Başındas bubbling electro-pop conjures up a vision of Madonna on an Anatolian holiday. Its never easy for a group to follow up a record that made as big a splash as the Grammy-nominated Gece did, and Altin Gun do the right thing by keeping the core of their sound intact while subtly branching out in other directions. The synthy, downbeat direction they chose may not be the most thrilling option, but the band make it work thanks to their musical vision, the wonderful voices of Merve Dasdemir and Erdinc Ecevit, and the fact that nobody else around is making music quite like this. ~ Tim Sendra