Past Forward: Cem Kayıran (Bant Mag, Istanbul)

I’m not sure whether my first choice reaches far enough back to do justice to the "Past" in the name of this column, but it is a record with a timeline of its own that could just as easily be described as “Forward.” The album I chose from the present also blurs the past, the present and what comes next. So, as you can see, I had to play around with the machine’s settings a little to answer the question.

Nekropsi - Sayı 2 (2006)

I think it would be absurd to try to describe Nekropsi’s journey, which began in the early 1990s, through a handful of genre labels. This is a band that brings its idiosyncratic language and distinctive pulse together with a deconstructive and highly intricate approach.

When this album came out while I was in high school, I had no idea music could produce such a visceral sense of excitement.

I bought the CD because I was drawn to its typography and the cover photograph, taken during the construction of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge over the Bosphorus. Then it turned my world completely upside down. Although the album was released in 2006, most of its songs have histories reaching much further back. Tracing the transformations some of them went through is a pleasure in itself.

The album includes both the original and the 2005 version of the opening track, Harf Devrimi. The recordings later released as Nekropsi 1998 also document what the same piece sounded like in 1998. Similarly, the earliest version of Foklar from Sayı 2, titled Fok, can be found on the band’s debut album Mi Kubbesi (1996).

Across Sayı 2, interlocking guitars, bass and drums turn repetition into a source of constant instability. Compositions seem to dismantle and rebuild themselves as they unfold. The album also opened my ears to just how imaginatively sampling could be used within the framework of a rock band.

In the years that followed, Nekropsi continued to play a defining role in my life as something of an urban legend, surfacing intermittently with new or newly unearthed archival recordings and only rarely playing live.

There is an "inimitable" quality to their music. Although they often produce angular, sharply focused sounds, there is no doubt that their insistence on operating outside established forms has inspired many other bands.

I should also mention that whenever the magazine team attends Le Guess Who?, we inevitably find ourselves enthusiastically declaring: "Nekropsi absolutely has to play here one day!" I hope everyone reading this gets the chance to experience the peculiar tension they generate onstage firsthand.

For now, those who are curious can listen to the CANLI / LIVE ISTANBUL concert recording they released earlier this year here. Four of its tracks are from Sayı 2, too.

Danae Palaka - Velox (2024)

Born into a musical family in Athens, with one branch of her family tree extending to Istanbul, Danae Palaka is a drummer and composer who moved to the city a few years ago to explore that connection more closely.

Naturally, drums sit at the heart of her music, but the story doesn’t end there.

I first came across Danae through her debut album Velox, released in 2024 by A.F.O.M. INT., the label founded by Istanbul-based DJ and curator Zozo. Despite placing the drums firmly at its centre, Velox isn’t the kind of record that puts technique above everything else. Instead, Danae explores the different cultural contexts and threads that have surfaced throughout her life.

The result is a textural, versatile and layered piece It is rarely easy to anticipate where the tracks will turn next. The modular synthesizer, handled with an intriguing sensibility, ranks among the elements that give the album its character. Tracks such as Yeditepe and Dokuz capture the album’s constantly shifting internal logic. The drums establish a sense of momentum, while the synth layers keep reframing it from different angles.

If you’re into bands such as Chicago Underground Duo, Anteloper, Horse Lords, Ill Considered and Holy Tongue, I’d say Velox is an album you shouldn’t miss.

Danae Palaka continues to play with various musicians and groups across Istanbul’s music scene and has brought Velox to the stage through several different instrumental configurations. More recently, the music has been performed by a dynamic quartet comprising Nikos Dervisis on synthesizer, Ömer Akalın on bass guitar and Ezgi Sevgi Can on saxophone alongside Danae. They also played a fantastic set at the YanYana festival we organized last April.

Cem Kayıran is the editor-in-chief of İstanbul based arts & culture magazine Bant Mag. He plays bass in the experimental / psychedelic rock band Pitohui and has been DJing at local clubs and hosting radio shows since 2009.