MIRCAN
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MIRCAN

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"FROOTS Review for the album Sala"

ROOTS Magazine Review Category: Music

Singer and composer Mircan has created a Pre-Raphaelite tapestry of a CD. It’s construction includes Turkish materials but the design is highly original and eclectic, owing less to tradition than to the work of innovative singer songwriters like Kate Bush and Tom Waits.

The title is a reference to a Muslim prayer for the dead and is the keynote for the CD. Lyrically, the songs are explorations of melancholy that includes Sala itself, the original Seed Of A Denial (in English), settings of English and Turkish poetry and a Black Sea lament, Bgara.

The melodies make extensive use of Turkish modes and are harmonised intelligently with a good dose of jazz. Mircan has a confident and disciplined voice, daring to go places many singers would avoid and successfully investing the words with requisite gravitas. Mircan’s band includes piano, clarinet, trumpet, guitar and bass. The standout instrumentalist, thoough, is cellist Ugur Isik, who prefaces many of the songs with gloriously original miniatures. His technique, inherited from the kemence, evokes the human voice and in his jazzy context evokes the baritone sax ( it occurs to me that a jazz band fronted by cello played with this technique would be a very fine thing indeed).

Another instrumental highpoint is Muammer Ketencoglu’s accordeon-he has a distinctive style, and contributes a lightness that leavens these songs. Lastly there is the unexpected but highly successful use of the didgeridoo, played by Serdar Ayvaz.

The recordings were made in Istanbul but the CD was mixed and edited to a high creative standard by Roger Mills in the UK: sala is very much a comlete artefact rather than an anthology of disparate songs. This is romantic, original and deeply-felt work full of fascinating juxtapositions. It will not be to everyone’s taste but those who do like it will love it. - FROOTS Magazine


"Review for the album OUTIM"

Mircan Kaya’s new album ‘Outim’ offers experiments with tradition Those who follow Mircan Kaya as she grows and develops through each successive album should be happy to hear that her latest work, "Outim," an ode to eastern Black Sea culture and Mingrelia, is one of her most personal albums. Since releasing her debut album, Kaya has touched the hearts of her fans with her intimate voice, which brings together sadness and an impassioned cry that no one can remain indifferent to. This album is the one in which she touches her own Mingrelian roots musically, and that is why I see it as being so very personal.
"Outim," her fifth album, is the result of two years of work, in which she wrote the stories of the songs, and gathered thoughts and inspiration and recorded in a studio in Bristol. One can say "Outim" is really a precious gift given to Mingrelian language and culture, because the Mingrelian language, an unwritten language, and the Mingrelians, one of the most populous ethnic groups in the eastern Black Sea region, find their voice in its songs. All the songs are composed by Mircan and Limbo, the Bristol-based jazz band that accompanied Mircan on her last two albums. The musical harmony that Mircan and Limbo create is clearly audible on "Outim," as on the previous album, "Numinosum." But, in "Outim," Limbo seems to have truly understood the traditional features of eastern Black Sea music. The rhythmic and harmonic blends Limbo makes, as well as the use of bagpipes in the place of the tulum (bagpipe-like instrument used in the Black Sea region), match well with Mircan's idea of "playing with" the traditional and somehow going beyond it.
Furthermore, it must be recalled that Limbo is an experimental jazz band. Hence, when combined with Mircan's inclination toward experimenting with music, words, melodic phrases and cadences, one can only remark, "No wonder they understand each other and fit in so well together."
The most interesting feature about "Outim," though, is that it is at the same time a book of stories written by Mircan. The stories are included in the album notes. Those stories all reflect "how it feels to be there, to live there among the pear trees and mountains and lush green of the Black Sea forests." It is a typical feature of the singer-songwriter tradition to stand halfway between music and literature, as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen did. So when Mircan blends stories and music together, the literary part feels like an organic ingredient of the whole album, where Arzu Basaran's paintings, Pelin Özer's haikus and Mircan's handwritten songs and stories are found in perfect harmony. Being such a multidimensional artwork, it sets an example as to what one would miss if one were to simply download it from the Internet.
To take a closer look at this multi-talented songwriter, one should explore her discography. On "Bizim Ninniler" (Our Lullabies), her first album, she sang lullabies from all over Anatolia and had a many fans among babies and mothers. Her second was a türkü (Turkish folk song) album titled "Kül," which was remixed and remastered very recently. On Kül, she sings the türküs in their appropriate regional styles and hearing her sing so close to an authentic performance has been a surprise to many türkü lovers. Then came "Sala," where she sang her own songs in Turkish, English and Mingrelian. From "Numinosum" onward, she started to work with Limbo and it seems "Numinosum," and now "Outim," are the albums that reflect her ability to balance freedom and structure. The brass section, especially Roger Mills' trumpet, renders an interesting interpretation of the abundant use of wind instruments in Black Sea music. It is as if the volume of the cry remains, but its character is changed into a more melancholic tone.
All the tracks on Kaya's latest album were recorded in Bristol, and she did her own musical direction. The third song, "Karmatte Gola Gza," is in the form of a Central Anatolian song in terms of its rhythm and melody, and it continues to resonate in your mind long after you listen to it. "Xopurepes" reflects a more Western form, and songs such as "Mu Phat E Skhiri," throughout which a loud, passionate bagpipe is heard, appeal to enthusiasts of both Black Sea music and Gaelic music.
The most striking feature of Kaya's singing is her ability to adopt many different voices. In other words, it feels as if she sings each song with a different character according to what the genre calls for. When asked about this, she answers that each song has a particular story and emotion and that, throughout each song, she feels those stories as her own and tries to reflect them in her singing. If one were to summarize "Outim," it could be said that it is music that reflects the feeling of being Mingrelian or from the eastern Black Sea in a "Mircanesque" way, just as we feel in her lullaby titled "Mircanisi Nani" (Mircan's Lullaby). (Mircan Kaya, "Outim," September 2008, UCM Productions)
04.10.2008 Arts & Culture
FULYA ÖZLEM - TODAY's ZAMAN


"Interview with MIRCAN by Alessandro Michelucci"

Introduction
Mircan Kaya, who lives now for the most part in Istanbul, but has her roots in Mingrelia (in what is now the independent Georgia), has become increasingly well known in recent years for her distinctive music; but she brings to the Turkish cultural scenemuch more than her music- as we shall see in the interview. Further more, as she herself notes in the interview, she has been able to combine her private life with not only a musical career but also with a career as astructural engineer. She prefers to earn her living through her professional engineering skills and to allow her musical and wider cultural productions to be less constrained. Nevertheless, there are many ways in which her various talents and interests are connected. For example, she is currently studying ethno-musicology and is also taking an advanced MSc in the analysis of historic buildings, which will involve her in studies in Italy (at the University of Padua), Portugal and Spain.

Her work, which has involved close collaboration with other musicians, including both Turkish and British artists, is strongly marked by her social origins and background, and by her own life experiences. Her early childhood memories in particular and her continuing links to the mountain village where she was brought up, and where her mother still partly lives, feed into many aspects of her adult life.

She has now produced five solo albums: Bizim Ninniler (Our Lullabies) with Çan Müzik in 2005; Kül with Kalan in the same year; Sala with UCM in 2006; and Kül & Ashes – a reprint of Kül-with UCM in 2007. She also produced Numinosum, together with Limbo (a group based in Bristol) in 2008, and OUTIM (Once upon a Time in Mingrelia), also with Limbo which was released in September 2008, not long after this interview. She has appeared (together with Kalincacik) in the compilation Made in Turkey 3/ The World of Turkish Grooves, with Yeni Dünya Müzik.

Her works published by Turkish labels can be found at www. Kalan.com and www.tulumba .com. For further details, see her websites: www.mircan.net, www.ucmproduction.com, www.myspace.com/Mircan and www.myspace.com/Mircananatolian.

David Seddon

“They say I started shopping when I was only three. I remember those days when I woke up early in the morning and went to the bakery to buy hot bread for the family, without beaing asked. And I remember very well that all the shop pwners were smiling at me, telling me something to make me angry, because I was so young. I was the subject of very special enjoyment in the mornings for them. I tell you all this to explain how hungry I was to discover new things. At the age of five, I was able to wander all around the city, knowing all the short cuts, all the secret streets. At that age, seeing how hungry I was for learning, my family placed me in an Arabic programme at the mosque. The environment of the mosque, and the language, added another perspective to my way of looking at and seeing the things.........”
Mircan Kaya

Alessandro Michelucci - Expose


"The New Internationalist Review for the album Kul & Ashes"

It’s not often that you find trained earthquake engineers delivering songs capable of causing tremors all on their own, but Mircan Kaya’s Kül & Ashes has a seismic presence that pulverizes lesser singers.

Turkey has had an infamously problematic relationship with its indigenous musics – which is possibly why Mircan, coming from a Georgian family relocated to the Black Sea area, is barely known to the wider world. This should change. Although Kül & Ashes – the two nouns are Turkish and English translations of each other – has taken two years to get an international release, it is a stunning work, and one that straddles the ancient and the modern with ease. Most of the nine tracks are interpretations of traditional songs, but are orchestrated in such a way as to reach beyond time. Accompanied by a compact band dominated by the heavy resonances of Emin Igüs’ baglama (a small saz or lute) and coloured by some Harold Budd-like trumpet from Roger Mills, Mircan’s voice has a sinuous presence. The brooding quality of a spare ‘Sad Olup Gülmedin’ (I Was Never Happy or Smiled) whistles around mountain eyries, while the droning beauty of ‘Osman’um’ (My Osman) is frankly terrifying – like Diamanda Galas set loose on the Caucasus.

LG - The New Internationalist


"BLACK SEA JAZZ AND MIRCAN"

BLACK SEA JAZZ AND MIRCAN
Hatice Tuncer-Cumhuriyet

“Music is the reason for my existence” ,
says MIRCAN. She is a successful civil engineer but the passion for music inside her knows no end. On her new album, Sâlâ, she fuses the sounds of the Black Sea region with jazz rhythms, singing songs about triumphing in life in spite of losses.

Mircan’s broad range of musical skills comes from the days she spent in the village of Içkale (formerly known as Chxala) in the district of Borçka. When Mircan was 9 years old, her family moved from Artvin to Istanbul, but they went back every summer to the village, where she was deeply impressed by the matchless natural beauty and all of the music which was preserved there.

Mircan studied civil engineering at Yildiz Technical University and completed a master’s degree at Bogaziçi University. After that, she worked on several projects related to engineering technology. Mircan is currently running a Turkish office that represents a multinational company operating in the field of earthquakes and construction technology.

“Engineering is a field in which I received professional training after I grew up. Music, though, is an emotion that has existed inside me ever since I was born. Singing and making music makes my existence meaningful.”

SYMPHONIC ROCK EXPERIMENTS

When Mircan was in university, she sang in a Turkish choir and participated in folk dances. She also started a music group with some friends that included her ex-husband, Erhan Kemal Kaya. Named Vaha, this group played symphonic rock music and Mircan continued performing with the band after graduating.

Music was a part of her life, but she was also successful in her profession: “Engineering is at least as attractive to me as music. Engineering technology might seem to be the exact opposite of music, but I got excited about my work. Sometimes becomes a desire becomes more and more intense until you explode, and that’s how it was a few years ago when I pick up my guitar, said ‘I am going to sing’


OUR LULLABIES

Mircan has been performing in a club in Arnavutköy with Emin Igüs for almost two years. Her album titled Bizim Ninniler (Our Lullabies) was released in 2004. Her next album, Kül (Ashes), was released by Kalan Müzik in 2005 and features folk songs performed “spontaneously” in a “non-traditional” style. One example of that style is Bilmem Neden Böyle Soldmu, a Neset Ertas folk song, which she performs with an electric guitar and improvised backup vocals. She performs Evlerinin Önü Yoldur with blues techniques and also sings a song in Georgian language. She says, “Kül was an album that focused on pain and sorrow. We included songs that I thought emphasized peace and which embrace everything in a compassionate way. You could describe Kül as an album that is a distillation of all the different music channels that I have been listening to.”


FRETTING OVER LOST TIME

After releasing Kül, Mircan wasted no time and started working on Sâlâ right away. As she was researching Laz and Megrel music, she began corresponding with Roger Mills, who was studying the same subject on the internet. Mills is an Australian researcher and musician living in England who poured his heart and soul into mixing Sâlâ in Bristol. The album cover features a memorable photograph taken when she was leaving Babs May, the 82-year-old landlord of the house she stayed at for 15 days in Bristol.


FAVORITE POETS

Mircan wrote a song based on Metin Eloglu’s Kalincacik poems, and for years she sang it with a single guitar. On this album, she performs it with an arrangement that resembles jazz: “The melodies for Özdemir Asaf’s poems, Çagri and Ölümün Yükselisi ve Çöküsü, came to me about three years ago when I was playing my guitar in my home. These are related to the theme of the album, which is overcoming death. What is important is to learn to live with that pain and enjoy life in spite of everything. That is why I am a person who is able to really enjoy life. Perhaps that is why I enjoy things that other people do not notice. It is important to be able to reconcile with the loss of people we love very much. Those are the emotions that I tried to communicate.”

UNCATALOGUED

If you wait for three minutes after the end of the last song on the album, For You, you can listen to a different version of the same song “Seed of a Denial” remixed by Roger Mills. Mircan has to use English a lot in her daily life, and she really enjoys singing the English songs on the album.

A company named Mondomix has made an agreement with Mircan for the electronic rights to Sâlâ and will handle worldwide digital sales for the album.

After she had recorded the album, she took it to the managers of a music production company, who said, “Very beautiful but we’re not sure it will fit our catalog.” She answered, “I want to do music that is not catalogued anyways,” and decided to start her own company. She founded her company to support her own music as well as to have the opportunity to work on different projects as well. She called the company UnCatalogued Music Production in order to describe her own style, which does not fit into any musical category.

“I am fighting to stay outside of the mainstream in spite of pressure from the media. I am investing the money I earn from engineering into my music as an effort to remind people about what music used to be and what its purpose used to be. At the very least, music did not used to be a way of earning money.”

Hatice TUNCER - Cumhuriyet – Feb. 4, 2007 - CUMHURIYET Newspaper


"NO NEED TO SPEAK"

NO NEED TO SPEAK
Mujde Yazici- Radikal

Mircan, who is the voice of the Laz people who are opening up to the outside world, says in an interview she did with Roll magazine that she spent one part of her childhood in "silence”. During this time, Mircan did not speak at all but only listened. But, later she chose ‘singing’ over speaking because there was no need to 'speak’. Mircan sings beautifully. Her album Sâlâ begins with a heart-rending lament and continues with a combination of joy and grief. She uses ethnic sounds and jazz rhythms on some of the pieces on the album, intertwining East and West. In this regard, Mircan sets aside the concept of “the other” and examines the human condition with her lyrics and voice as well as with the language and instruments used on the album. Mircan touches on the essence of humanity and the noblest emotions that a person can have. She more than deserves the attention she has received from listeners who take pleasure in examining these sentiments. Sâlâ is an emotional album. The artwork of Arzu Basaran adorns the cover of the album whose emotions we have described. Enjoy!
Mircan / Sâlâ / IMM Music
MÜJDE YAZICI- Radikal – 10/12/2006 - RADIKAL NEWSPAPER


Discography

Bizim Ninniler (Our Lullabies)
Kul & Ashes
Sala
Numinosum
Outim

Photos

Bio

Mircan Kaya
Introduced by David Seddon

Introduction
Mircan Kaya, who lives now for the most part in Istanbul, but has her roots in Mingrelia (in what is now the independent Georgia), has become increasingly well known in recent years for her distinctive music; but she brings to the Turkish cultural scenemuch more than her music- as we shall see in the interview. Further more, as she herself notes in the interview, she has been able to combine her private life with not only a musical career but also with a career as astructural engineer. She prefers to earn her living through her professional engineering skills and to allow her musical and wider cultural productions to be less constrained. Nevertheless, there are many ways in which her various talents and interests are connected. For example, she is currently studying ethno-musicology and is also taking an advanced MSc in the analysis of historic buildings, which will involve her in studies in Italy (at the University of Padua), Portugal and Spain.

Her work, which has involved close collaboration with other musicians, including both Turkish and British artists, is strongly marked by her social origins and background, and by her own life experiences. Her early childhood memories in particular and her continuing links to the mountain village where she was brought up, and where her mother still partly lives, feed into many aspects of her adult life.

She has now produced five solo albums: Bizim Ninniler (Our Lullabies) with Çan Müzik in 2005; Kül with Kalan in the same year; Sala with UCM in 2006; and Kül & Ashes – a reprint of Kül-with UCM in 2007. She also produced Numinosum, together with Limbo (a group based in Bristol) in 2008, and OUTIM (Once upon a Time in Mingrelia), also with Limbo which was released in September 2008, not long after this interview. She has appeared (together with Kalıncacık) in the compilation Made in Turkey 3/ The World of Turkish Grooves, with Yeni Dünya Müzik.

Her works published by Turkish labels can be found at www. Kalan.com and www.tulumba .com. For further details, see her websites: www.mircan.net, www.ucmproduction.com, www.myspace.com/Mircan and www.myspace.com/Mircananatolian.