Erdem Helvacioğlu- "Altered Realities"

Erdem Helvacioğlu - Shadow My Dovetail (New Albion 2007)

Erdem Helvacioğlu - Altered Realities / New Albion

Turkey is a nation rich with history and tradition. From the time of Constantinople to its heyday as the center of the Ottoman Empire to its critical current placement as the literal bridge between Europe and Asia bordered by no less than eight countries, Turkey reaps massive rewards from so many cultures converging in one place. It may not always be pretty politically (especially in the east), but the opportunity for connecting people cannot be ignored.

Erdem Helvacıoğlu is a graphic demonstration of this principle. Though he initially studied engineering and electroacoustics, Helvacioğlu has also made a name for himself globally as one of the foremost modern Turkish composers. How many beyond Ilhan Mimaroglu can you name, after all? He has produced and scored for multimedia, dance, theater, film, and you might remember his name from a well-received 2004 field recording called A Walk Through the Bazaar. He's done everything from San Francisco to Seoul with his compositions, but the effects-laden acoustic works that make up Altered Realities are where the strongest of his many strengths lie.

To get a general idea of what Helvacıoğlu is all about, check out his website where he vaguely describes his blending of "the sounds of traditional Turkish instruments and contemporary versions" along with guitars and electronics. So far it sounds intriguing, but what really makes Altered Realities so spectacular (and which has already been pointed out in numerous places, but you deserve to hear it from us as well) is that these songs were recorded directly to Digital Audio Tape with absolutely no overdubs, post-processing, mixing, or editing. That Helvacıoğlu used only the sounds of his Ovation Custom Legend 1869 acoustic guitar to find the right celestial tones that permeate the record. Throw in a dash of MIDI foot controllers and some Audiomulch and you've got yourself a real thing of beauty.

The way it works is that he will strum a note or chord and then feed them through his limited arsenal of processors. Everything is done in real-time, so while he may have a TC Electronic Fireworx multi-effects processor, it's only being used when Helvacıoğlu is actually playing the instrument. And it's the only instrument on here, too.

It hardly matters. "Bridge to Horizon," the seven-minute opener, sets you in the right frame of mind with its heavenly guitars. In the middle of the high plateaus that dominate the central part of the country, out there where few tribes are willing to live, this is what Turkish moonlight sounds like. All of these songs has a pastoral feel, but album highlight "Shadow My Dovetail" hits the most striking emotional heartstrings as it evolves from a lost, wayward landscape into an almost trad-alien conclusion; there's evidence of Turkish traditional folk songs but they don't sound traditional coming through the real-time processors. The finishing track, "Ebony Remains," is a sparse, open piece dominated more by the spaces between chords than the chords themselves and is a gentle way of easing out of the album.

Separately, these songs sound like an excellent way to end a mix CD or maybe set the mood of a night out in the backyard stargazing in the company of close friends. Together, Helvacıoğlu has composed one of the best starglazed records of the year. In some ways its challenge is that it doesn't often jump out and grab you, preferring instead to play quietly and keep to itself. An unobtrusive album that rewards close listening, Altered Realities is an excellent piece of work from one of Turkey's brightest artistic stars. For a label that's best known for guys like John Cage, New Albion certainly has an ace up their sleeve in a man ideally placed to bridge brand new musical gaps every time he touches an instrument. That's worth hearing.