Dirtmusic – Bu Bir Ruya (Glitterbeat Records)
LP / CD / DL
26 January 2018
9 / 10
Former Bad Seeds and Walkabouts members release their fifth
album.
The sheer quality of Bu Bir Ruya is staggering, perhaps more
so given that their previous two albums – Troubles (2013) and Lion City (2014)
– were also of such incredible superiority.
The journey through Mali that heavily influenced their last two albums
has now taken a wider, more cinematic path and Dirtmusic have come up with the
goods once more.
This new album sees Chris Eckman (formerly of Walkabouts)
and Hugo Race (ex Bad Seeds) team up with Turkish psych visionary Murat Ertel
of Baba Zula fame to produce a darker, heavier, more reverbed magic. Its seven tracks covering forty-two minutes
provide certainly one of the early contenders for album of the year in 2018 but
more importantly, an album of such staggering intricacy and meticulousness that
it continues to impress listen after listen after listen.
Album opener, Bi De Sen Soyle sets the standard, and it’s a
high one. Echoing guitars and tribal percussive
patter blend wonderfully with Ertel’s baglama saz, Race’s vocals are as raw and
gravelled as ever adding intensity and suspense to the proceedings. Its hypnotic certainly, as much of the album
is, and gripping rhythms are difficult to shake off.
As the album continues into The Border Crossing with its
post-punk funk and reverb, the immortal line “don’t you know the world is
getting smaller” resonates deep within.
Recorded in a converted mechanic’s studio in Istanbul, the sound is one
of a live feel but with a clinically organic edge and as the lovely guitar
pluck ends and fades it’s onwards and upwards.
The stunning vocals of Gaye Su Akyol feature on Love Is A
Foreign Country providing a haunting interlude which grips the listener with
every note. It’s simple and
enthrallingly monotonous and provides a quite wonderful halfway mark for the album
before Safety In Numbers breaks free and almost explodes onto the scene. Deep bass grooves and one of those annoyingly
catchy straplines that just won’t go away.
Album closer and title track Bu Bir Ruya uses sound bytes
and voice samples over what can only be described as an experimental piece with
screams and screeches and possibly even dog barks along the way being married
with some timely dub effects. It all fits
comfortably into place on an album that continues to impress from the very
first notes. Four years in the making
but worth every second.
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