#selda

Photo by Jessica Gratigny

Immaterial Possession puts the viscerality of bass-driven rock, the hypnotic drone of East European folk and the dippy energy of art punk into a blender lets it whirr.  The Athens, Georgia band—comprised of Cooper Holmes, Madeline Polites, John Spiegel and Elephant 6 scion Kiran Fernandes—met at an arts commune.  Their self-titled debut came out in 2020, and the follow-up, Mercy of the Crane Folk, this year. Reviewing it, Jennifer Kelly noted that, “If you’ve ever wondered what the B-52s might sound like on a serious Incredible String Band bender, well, possibly a lot like Mercy of the Crane Folk.”

Vurulduk Ey Halkim Unutma Bizi Selda 1976, Türküola

The western thirst for vintage psych rock is unquenchable, which has led to a ton of great reissues in the past decade from far-flung psychedelic hotbeds like Zambia, Japan, and Turkey—the latter home of the great Selda Bağcan. Selda’s ‘70s folk rock recordings are as galvanizing as any punk, by turns as warlike and ecstatic as the leftist poetry and Islamic scales that give life to the songs. 1976’s Vurulduk Ey Halkim Unutma Bizi (We Were Shot, My People, Don’t Let Us Forget) isn’t as fuzz-drenched as the self-titled LP that proceeded it earlier in the same year, but it is equally fiery.

I’ve always found that folk music from around the Mediterranean Sea has a swashbuckling quality, the interplay of string players like two perfectly matched fencers thrusting and parrying atop a long dining table. The crossed guitar and baglama illustrated on Vurulduk Ey Halkim Unutma Bizi’s back cover comes across as a statement of purpose. It’s music that gets the blood pumping, for dance or protest alike, and Selda matches it vocally. She’s the heartfelt call to the snaky electric baglama and organ’s response on “Karaoglan”; the frosty embodiment of a woman finally pushed to close a door forever on “Bundan Sonra”; the mountain wind on the forlorn “Maden Dagi.”

It’s not surprising that Turkey’s far right authorities found Selda’s music threatening enough to harass her for most of the following decade—it’s heady stuff even without the help of intelligible words. Online translation butchers the lyrics included on the sleeve, yet the imagery in the fragments is powerful:

We bled, we became soil, We withdrew, we became a flag, We became leaves, we came to this day We made the bread abundant, We made the pain honey. (from “Aciyi Bal Eyledik” [“We Turned the Pain Into Honey”])

In “Bundan Sonra” (“After This”), describing some unknown, unforgiveable betrayal:

Quran, Bible, if you were a psalm I would not open you from now on, If you were the juice of the river of paradise I would not drink you from now on. […] Is my death your wish? Your word has worked for me— If you were heaven’s line I wouldn’t cross you from now on.

Imagery of Lorca-esque purity:

They burned their last cigarette like a lamp in their mouths They lit their last cigarette They lit their last cigarette like a lamp in their mouths And they sat Under the dry-leaved cannon tree. (from “Maden Iscileri” [“Miners”])

As with Victor Jara and other politically militant bards of the South American nueva cancion movement, it’s possible to have a rich and fulfilling experience with Selda’s music on its purely sonic merits. But for me anyway, understanding its connections to movements for the rights of working people deepens my appreciation. Vurulduk Ey Halkim Unutma Bizi is a great one.