Description
Gaye Su Akyol
Gaye Su Akyol is an Istanbul-based musician and artist, born in 1985. In her work, she redefines the concepts of power, desire, change and rebellion, hand in hand in tight-knit solidarity with women, queer and outcast communities, and rebels against societal gender roles, patriarchy, censorship, and oppression. She creates a universe of imagination, in which she constructs her own “counter-reality” against the stifling realities dictated by power. Without alienating from the land she was born into, she questions its representations, defines new symbols, and, while struggling with the complexities and political chaos of the concrete world, she chases after the practice of transforming a conservative world through collective dreaming.
Gaye Su Akyol has created her own unique language, taking the contrasts of traditional Anatolian music, Classical Turkish music, psychedelia, surf rock and post-punk, and combining them with her futuristic approach. Akyol, who, in 2014, released her first album “Develerle Yaşıyorum” (“I Live With Camels”) in 2014, written and composed entirely by herself, defines her music as “universal in concept, local in spirit”. She expanded her audience through numerous concerts and festivals in Turkey, Europe, Middle East and the Far East, with the release of her first international album, “Hologram İmparatorluğu” (“Hologram Empire”) in 2016, released dually from German-based record label Glitterbeat, and Dunganga Records, a label which Akyol has co-founded with Ali Güçlü Şimşek. She had received rave reviews for her music and creations, from major media publications such as The New York Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Pitchfork and The Wire. In her third long play, “İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir” (“Consistent Fantasy is Reality”), released in 2018, a record which she names “a practice of dreaming”, she not only writes and composes the entirety of the album, but also takes on the role of producer in the stages of production, arrangement and recording, and art director to the visual aspect of the record. With this album, she became the first musician from Turkey to be featured on the cover of Songlines, one of the top music magazines in England, and was awarded the “Best Artist” title in 2019.
”Akyol is the futuristic figurehead of the revived Anatolian rock movement, which first flourished between military coups in the 1960s and 1970s. Fusing Turkish classical and folk music roots with mind-expanding psychedelic rock, it was embodied then by the likes of
Cem Karaca, whose voice was a wild flourish of insolent romantic freedom, and Selda Bağcan,
a rare female pioneer and early Akyol hero, who was jailed for her protest songs.
Financial Times
“Gaye Su Akyol has revived a style of music once thought deeply uncool, and she uses it to comment poetically on her country.
New York Times
Habbina Habbina
We are excited to announce Habbina Habbina will be opening for Gaye Su Akyol!
“Habbina Habbina plays what could be described as Mediterranean surf, with a surfing style that owes much to the Middle Eastern side of Dick Dale, or the Western side of Omar Khorshid. Habbina Habbina, named after a beloved song by syrian singer Farid El-Atrache, takes its inspiration from Egyptian pop, Greek tunes as well as all sorts of retro-Mediterranean-hits, James Bond Soundtracks, Umm Kulthum, Aris San and many more.