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AUGURI
Mehmet Aslan’s album Auguri is a conceptual and collaborative exploration of our relationship with nature. It draws on bird migration, climate change and Donna Haraway’s ecological ideas.
The project was developed during a residency at Nuits Sonores in Lyon. From the start, it was a collaboration with Greek filmmaker Stratis Vogiatzis. In addition, the album features guest contributions from artists such as POPP, with visuals by ornithographer Xavi Bou.
Auguri blends ambient, electro and psychedelic folk with field recordings and spoken word. Opener “Spectra” sets the tone with industrial breakbeats. Meanwhile, tracks like “Critters” and “Pigeon Blinks” reflect on ecological shifts, both at home and on a global scale.
The album is released in partnership with EarthPercent, co-founded by Brian Eno. By crediting the Earth as a co-writer, part of the album’s revenue and publishing goes to environmental initiatives.
As a result, Auguri is an immersive and urgent statement on coexistence, vulnerability and planetary care.
MEHMET ASLAN presents Senza Decoro: Liebe + Anarchia / Switzerland 1980-1990
In the late ’70s, Switzerland embraced punk in its cities. This paved the way for the post-punk era of the 1980s, as music splintered into freeform strands across the whole country. As a result, it became one of the most innovative periods in Switzerland’s modern music history.
“It was like a wild laboratory for all forms of new and strange sounds, rackets and compositional experiments,” explains writer Lurker Grand, “accompanied and inspired by cutting-edge developments in electronic musical instruments.”
“A broad, innovative scene developed and the four different language and cultural regions of Switzerland were no longer perceived to be an obstacle. There was a curiosity for the foreign and the strange. Conflicts for freedom and free spaces took place and this was reflected in the music.”
This unfiltered, non-commercial creativity is the common denominator for the songs on this compilation. Many artists operated in their own universe, and hardly any of the acts actually met each other at the time. In fact, only Liliput from Zürich achieved notable fame, building on the success of their previous incarnation as Kleenex.
Spotify Track ID playlist
Monthly curated playlist
BIRD SIGNALS FOR EARTHLY SURVIVAL - RESIDENCY & LIVE A/V
By Mehmet Aslan, Glitter, Stratis Vogiatzis and Malo Lacroix
“Bird Signals for Earthly Survival” is an audio-visual music performance. It translates the journey of migrating birds into a contemporary comment on the complex environmental and refugee challenges of our age, otherwise known as the Anthropocene.
The project originates from an old myth. According to it, migrating birds carry a lost language derived from an ancient human tribe. This language is translated into signs, which communicate the transformations of Gaia to other animals.
In the Anthropocene, most of Gaia’s ecosystems are said to be deteriorating rapidly. We therefore follow the journey of migrating birds in an attempt to decode the signals they transmit and, ultimately, to learn the art of living on a damaged planet.
The live performance combines video, photography, soundscapes, electronic sounds and performative voices. In doing so, it connects ecology, science and art to expand our awareness of today’s environmental challenges.
Produced by Arty Farty / We Are Europe & Planisphere
Supported by Pro Helvetia and Creative Europe
REFUGE WORLDWIDE - RESIDENCY
Monthly residency, mostly recorded live in Berlin at OONA Bar.
“Refuge was started as a fundraising platform working in solidarity with grassroots and non-profit organisations. In January 2021 we launched Refuge Worldwide, a new radio station to amplify the music and issues that we care about, broadcasting 24/7 from Weserstraße 166, (12045 Berlin Neukölln).
From our home in Berlin Neukölln we now host weekly workshops, training programmes and classes in media, creative fields and mental health. These are free to attend as part of our community outreach. Refuge Worldwide is also involved in a number of collaborative projects around the globe with likeminded collectives, radio stations and activists.”
More info
refugeworldwide.com
MEHMET ASLAN - THE SUN IS PARALLEL
Driven by questions related to the fluidity of his own identity, as well as the unusual stretch of time the past years have provided to investigate oneself, ‘The Sun Is Parallel’ is informed by musical movements from Sun Ra to hauntology. The record’s cosmic, intuitive mood is evident immediately from opening salvo ‘Fountain’, leading into ‘Domo’, a tapestry of knotty drums against a backdrop of guitar licks reminiscent of a Morricone score.
The fervent acid funk of ‘Rowndbass Acid’ releases the endorphins associated with Aslan’s many hours stood in the DJ booth, but ‘If I Can Belong Anywhere’ pulls the rug back into more searching territory, a beautiful but melancholy drone displaced with thundering drums. “What you’ve got to remember”, intones the voice of James Baldwin, “is that everyone you’re looking at is also you.”
Aslan underscores his belief in human, creative connection with two collaborative pieces central to the vision of ‘The Sun Is Parallel’. Alongside the Spanish-born singer Niño de Elche, ‘Tangerine’ delves into flamenco inspiration for a searing mini-epic that unfurls like the peel of its namesake, before bottling the groove and virtuoso guitar for a near- instrumental accompaniment, ‘Tangerine Sun’, the most subtle of acid lines nudging back toward the dancefloor.
‘Garden’ features the contribution of Valentina Magaletti, one of the finest drummers playing in the world today. Known for her work alongside Nicolas Jaar, Thurston Moore and as part of the band Vanishing Twin, Magaletti’s sensitive, hyper-detailed percussion blends with Aslan’s elegaic synthesized atmosphere to paint a sonic picture of a mysterious oasis.
At the LP’s conclusion, Aslan loops both musically and thematically back to the philosophical crux of ‘The Sun Is Parallel’, ending with the humane glitch of ‘Everyone Is Also You’. It’s a hopeful note, recalling another of the thoughtful vocal samples buried within Aslan’s evocative and hopeful instrumental passages.
“In a way, the world is a huge musical composition, going on all the time, without a beginning, and presumably, without an ending”, considers Canadian composer & environmentalist R. Murray Schaefer on ‘Private Soundscape’. “We can improve it or we can destroy it… That’s all up to us.”
Teaser - Garden feat. Valentina Magaletti
24.11.2022
Video by Dimitri Erhard
Teaser - Tangerine ft. Niño de Elche
07.12.2022
Video by Dimitri Erhard
MUSIC FOR BOOKS ON WORLDWIDE FM
Switzerland’s Mehmet Aslan presents his ongoing radio show, Music For Books. Established as a talented producer and DJ, Aslan has forged a reputation for coming to music and culture from fresh and under-travelled paths, whether it’s crate-digging for rare Swiss new wave or sampling forgotten Turkish pop.
Music For Books is a show that combines the pleasure of reading with the curation of personal soundtracks. The show is an evolving examination of our passion for art across different mediums. Aslan will encourage his guests and audience to think about literature in different ways, exploring the relationship between sound & imagination.
This month, he soundtracks “Orrizonte in Italia” by Antonio Rovaldi.
First books provided by “I Never Read” Art Book Fair, Basel.
All shows:
wrldwd.fm
ALYSHA ON THE NEW POPE BY PAOLO SORRENTINO
ALYSHA by MEHMET ASLAN is part of the official soundtrack of Paolo Sorrentino’s new TV Series “The New Pope” starring Jude Law & John Malkovich co starring Silvio Orlando, Javier Camera, Cecile de France, Ludivine Sagnier, Sharon Stone.
Produced & distributed by HBO, CANAL+, SKY
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21LVtt_hEBU https://www.hbo.com/the-new-pope
