Sunday, October 04, 2009

Mazhar ve Fuat - Türküz Türkü Çağırırız (1973)

8 comments:

kosice said...

This album's RYM rating is 3.21 - way too low, in my opinion. This is, in fact, an excellent album and I would certainly rate it much higher - maybe 8/10? The one misstep for me is the only song sang in English - it's not bad by any means but it just does not have the same feel as the other songs. Oh, but the rest of the album is outstanding! Excellent Tuskish folk rock with some energetic cuts and some dreamy slower ones - all have this hypnotic feel and all have great vocals and vocal harmonies. And some wicked guitar runs on a few cuts...overall, a great album. Thank you for sharing it!

Marian

horseman_wolf said...

For me personally this is one of THE standout albums in late 60s/early 70s exotic rock music. I like it as much as Churchill´s and find it to be one of the best folkrock albums of the period. You wouldn´t judge that from the cover, though. Interesting that it doesn´t sound like the usual turkrock stuff - it lacks the middle asian tinge. These guys become big rock stars in Turkey in the 80s/90s as MFÖ (Mazhar Fuat Özkan), being something like the turkish U2 (or so).
Just seen an original copy for 1300,- USD on Ebay TR.....

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't rate RYM as an accurate guage for rating a record.I agree with both comments.The album is top notch Turkish Folk Pop Psych with a western slant.I also agree that the English song on the album is weak.If you understand Turkish and you like folk psych, than this album gets a 9 out of 10 from me.Almost perfect save for the duff song sung in English.Also the Turkish language itself (as well as the Turkic scales played on western instruments) is what gives this record it's exotic edge.It's going to be released on Shadoks fairly soon (sometime in 2010),so don't spend your hard earned cash on an original.By the way, the female singer on the album is called Lale Akat.Great voice.Super record all round.
Cheers
Hakan Tibet

Anonymous said...

Great to find comments and additional info about this great album and band. I knew nothing about them until hearing this album and I am happy to know that they have made it big later on in Turkey - they certainly deserve it after recording this gem. In time, it sounds better and better to me - just spent a week on vacation with this album playing over and over in my car's CD player. 8 out of 10 - what was I thinking? I will rate it as 9.5 for sure, too bad about the English song...It would sound OK on an album by a band like ISB or Dr. Strangely Strange - but it always comes as a shock when I hear it on this album. Oh well, this is still an incredible music!

Marian

horseman_wolf said...

Although I do not dislike the unspectacular english song as much as you guys do, isn´t it a strange phenomenon that many top notch albums get spoilt by one song that sucks? Just think of Twink´s "Think Pink" and that awful "Three Little Piggies" ..... or so many great Psych or Heavy Rock LPs that suddenly are losing grip when you have to pass a far below average Bluesrock track that lasts 8 minutes+!

Bilek said...

Good news for the reviewers who are unhappy with the RYM rating: as of now (6/6/2012) it went as high as 3.86 (from 19 ratings)... Well, it's always possible to increase this rating by signing in (or up first) and rating the album higher! (maybe I'll do the same after hearing it a couple of more times)

As for the album, I have it for almost two years in this format (192 kbps), which has an Internet shortcut to 2yol.com in the folder. I'm not sure if I DL'ed it from this blog, but if I did, here's a belated thanks!


* Speaking of Mazhar & Fuat, I remember listening to a solo track by Fuat years ago, dating from mid-to-late seventies... The track was initially called "Ben", MFÖ re-recorded the song for their debut album in 1984, renaming it "Olmuyor Olamıyor" (after the most repeated line) and here's a re-re-recording from 2003:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SMPSXtIJvQ (I'll gladly translate the lyrics to English if requested ;) )

However, the "original" version was much better with psychedelic backdrop and killer distorted guitar solos (at least that's what I remember!)

Apparently someone uploaded the original song to youtube, but it was taken down :( according to this entry http://www.eksisozluk.com/show.asp?id=26251846 in a Turkish dictionarypediaforum site, it was first broadcast on Sept. 9, 1979 (which means it was recorded shortly before)

I'll be grateful to the person who can provide that version of the song in any format/quality!!!

Keep up the good work...

Bilek said...

Greetings from Turkey, by the way!

Nile B. said...

Thank you for posting a link to this album! I couldn't find their music anywhere until I stumbled onto this post.