-10.01.2024-
It is difficult for me, as well as for many, to distinguish if studying the music before a concert would be conducive to understanding the music or ruin the first-hand experience, especially in terms of classical music. While the Turkish psychedelic Anatolian surf rock punk music staged by Gaye Su Akyol in a club-like venue could hardly fall into the concept of what we usually perceive as a concert, I first time found myself facing the exact ambivalent hesitation in front of a performance I would have never thought of to intentionally decipher. Although it would become cyclical to inquire whether it was the talk with Gaye, the artist, before the performance and the notion of her music imbued then made me into that situation or it was the actual musicking process I experienced that night that solidified the impact of the talk in my mind, I cannot deny the enchanting magic of that as piercing voice’s pulling me up from the floor and from the trance I was put into by the previous as deafening EDM.
To be as honest as I can at this moment, I will never claim that I ‘understood’ her music – the language, the melodies – or maybe lines of ancestors and poems of her land, while thanks to the idea of staying authentic with the courage she pivoted in our conversation, I will still claim that I ‘heard’ and ‘saw’ her music in the sense of, as shallow as, the mere musical elements that I dare not to master, but also, as profound as, witnessing the complex of the musical landscape being built by elements of whatever psychedelic, Avant-guard, nostalgic, folk, and so on. With the concept of musicking in mind instead of the static ‘music’ to discuss, I would then justify my right, and I believe that of a decent mass of our audience as well, to be gripped by her and the band’s attire before a sound was even made on stage. Contrary to the sunglasses from the space era covering the band's expressions, the superwoman palette that spilled on Gaye’s leotard, which was covered by a dazzling golden cape shaped not only her curvy figure. Sometimes, the sensual charm has its right to prevail – especially when the mic wiped across the wind chime-like hangings above her thigh, setting off on a journey to outer space and a dream kingdom, I quote.
In fact, not only did I not ‘understand’ the music, the embarrassment I felt in the opening speech, mixed with undecipherable Turkish, also put me in doubt at the beginning of whether I could indeed enjoy the night eventually. And I guess that unconsciously conjured me at the end of the day, given that not-so-promising start, was a testimony to, at least, the psychedelic nature emitted. If I were to name a point that tugged my existence into the venue from my typical unsuccessful analytical mindset, it would be the second when that ethereal Turkish folk singing surrounded by the supermassive reverbs plunged into the deep-dark rock-n-roll growl; it would be the inaudibility of Gaye smashing the tom drums in a protesting posture, even exclaiming that voice louder than that of a mere doubling on the drum kit could ever do, driving my vertebrate to straight up awfully; it would be the leaps of that guitarist’s talents in mimicking different folk instruments with timbers from granular acoustic IR samples applied and the Turkish minor scales to the overdrive with an obvious exciter on the top-end; it would be the simultaneously played synth on the keyboard and the left-hand hammered bass guitar by an ambidextrous profile on the side of the stage. Yes, indeed, I did not have a continuous or immersive experience then – but intriguingly, it also did not bother me at all. Compared to the embarrassment that seized me due to my inability to understand when she launched the rocket, my ego to dominate my own musicking faded out inadvertently despite the fact that the incomprehensible message stayed still. It was much enough to peek at or to overhear a bit of that intact world.
With that in mind, the deafening drums and whisky light beams even turned out to be soothing in terms of us being authentic and confident as listeners and presented entities in her spaceship. In a franker way to put it, I again sat down on the floor during the performance – but not out of unbearability this time but simply an inner initiative. True, it was unfair in a sense to judge too biasedly according to personal preference, yet the physicality in that venue of rabbling flashes, Tyndall effects, spills and splashes, yells and laughn’s, and wavy dances both on and off the stage perked to stay authentic in this sense of unfairness to the previous EDM and a distant satisfaction at that moment. My undergoing would surely fit in the broader unleashing of feelings, opinions, and so on – even if just within us audience – emerged with the echoing chanting that got more and more comfortable towards the end of the night on the stage.
Undeniably, nine out of ten, if the audience started to leave the performance in advance, the atmosphere of the night could be ruined – yet that was not the case here. The chanting was only a slight component that evidently got livelier when almost half of the venue was left empty – the limbs of the band, the footsteps of the dancing pairs, the hops in and out of the faculties, and the final formation of our audience choir followed by the Halay folk dance. One, two, and three circles connected with hands and arms jogging counter-clockwise in an ineffable rhythm brought the hyped ones, the shy ones, and even the ones like me who were too tired to dance and stance aside into that ephemeral yet so miracle community of the moment.
As a matter of fact, being in that venue that night was an exhausting affair for sure – for us audience, for the bands, and for Gaye for sure. Nonetheless, at least for me, an unfathomable kingdom revealed itself in a second. And it was more than enough to take away even a slight bit of authenticity, courage, and confidence from it as well as that Anatolian-rock-punk relic.
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