COMPOSERS: Istanbul,Members of the Alevi sect
LABELS: JVC World Sounds
WORKS: World
PERFORMER: Members of the Alevi sect, Istanbul
CATALOGUE NO: VICG-5345-2
Riding the flood of releases from JVC’s World Sounds makes for exciting travel. The collection, first issued in Japan, has extended the recorded lists of many countries’ music and it is only possible to take samples of it in a short round-up like this. From Turkey, two discs listen in on Sufi rituals.
To join a full-scale Sufi ceremony, or at least part of it, turn to the prayer CD. What you hear begins with a couple of voices and plucked strings, gradually gathering intensity and force. Clapping and dance rhythms take over, and towards the end some wild surges draw excited shouts. What are they?
The packaging is desperately short of facts and mentions only the special permission obtained from the Alevi sect, who are moving towards a state of trance in the recording, and a location somewhere in Istanbul. Exciting enough, but a little more detail would have helped it mean more.