Ersen - Ersen

Turkish psych is no turkey in the hands of these LP-gobblers

Finders Keepers’s Anatolian invasion continues – and not before time. It’s been well over a year since Selda’s self-titled release became one of RC’s reissues of the year, and now we get the other side of the Turkish psych coin. Selda was brassy, in-your-face, politically-charged; Ersen Dinleten remained apolitical. He’s no less energetic, but it’s a different kind of energy. Anyone who heard last year’s Voice Of The Seven Woods album will have some idea, only this time it’s coming direct from the Turkish source.

With the most minimal echo, Ersen’s voice risks floating away as it rides atop his Middle- Eastern psych, folk and, as on Bir Ayrilik Bir Yoksulluk Bir Ölüm, sometimes even yé-yé-by-way-of- Andalou pop-sounding music. The mix includes a bunch of funk with the likes Dostlar Beni Hatirlasin, all proving Ersen one of the more eclectic from an already wildly eclectic scene (and label).

Basically, what it comes down to is this: how many more long-lost American psych Nuggets, Pebbles or Rubble compilations do you want? Or, how’s about something that does it differently, and perhaps even better than the you’ll-know- how-this-goes-before-you-hear- it obscure Arkansas garage band’s cover of Have Love Will Travel? You call the toss.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Finders Keepers | FKR 016 CD

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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