#mr. bongo

Kit Sebastian is not, as you might assume, a single person’s name. It stands in shorthand for a duo, instrumentalist Kit Martin (who lives in London and France) and singer Merve Erdem, who hails from Istanbul and now lives in London. Perhaps its Erdem who brings the disc its pronounced Anatolian flavor, starting with a cover of “Senden Baska,” a song about infatuation (trembling legs, burning lips, etc.) made popular by the Turkish singer Göksel. Here the duo slants a guitar riff through bleats and surges of stylish synth waves. They split the singing, he scratchy and baritone, she airy and aiming at pop.

Elsewhere the sound shifts towards Latin America, prompting the inevitable Os Mutantes reference. Martin plays a lot of different drums, hand drums, cowbells, a variety of scratched and shaken instruments and the hiccup-y, Brazilian Cuica. You can hear the slink and roll of all this percussion best on cuts like “Pangea.” The drumming also adds some zip to the serpentine swagger of “Yanimda Kal,” another Turkish-sourced cut.

Mantra Moderne is an engaging oddity, suave on its surface, but giddy with DIY experiment underneath. Of no specific country, it evokes a whole bunch of them. Of no definitive time period, it hints at a future that may once have seemed possible and now looks unlikely.