VUSLAT

The musical ensemble was created during the spring of 2009 by Victoria Taskou and CihanTürkoglu, in collaboration with Manousos Klapakis and Solis Barki.
The band’s music interests revolve around traditional sounds derived from Greece and Turkey, improvisation, and the band’s individual interpretation of music proposals.

The Turkish word VUSLAT has Arabic origins, and translates into the “fusion”, “completion”, “merging”, with something you trully desire, and whose absense is felt deep wthin your soul.

CihanTürkoglu was born in Turkey; his main instrument is the saz. Cihan studies the music idioms from various regions of Turkey, and combines them with elements of the Greek music tradition through his personal modern aesthetic “filter”.

Victoria Taskou has been following quite a similar path in musical duality. Victoria, with a base in Greek traditional song and byzantine music studies, and with oud as her chosen instrument, has been discovering the Turkish musical tradition, both classical and folk; a musical path she has chosen to follow.

The music “gears” of these two artists meet with those of Manousos Klapakis and Solis Barki; percussionists who have managed to penetrate, with instruments as their tool, the musical idioms of the Mediterranean, Balkan, Persian, and African music.
Both, being musicians with great knowledge and sensitivity, are the link that binds this musical ensemble together.

Sometimes VUSLAT may chose a relatively simplistic and traditional way of presenting their music, while others they play following their personal creative wants and instincts. Whichever style the band pursues, there is always free space for improvisation, an ideology which forms the backbone of Vuslat’s music.
Vuslat’s starting point is the music that attracts its members. The geographical influences of the band’s musical repertoire covers a multitude of Greek and Turkish regions. The “musical capital” of their music could be specified as Asia Minor, but their inspiration and creative stimuli web out towards all directions of the two countries. A sample of Vuslat’s music breadth could be summarized by naming some music genres that have infused the band’s music, such as the zeybek, syrtó, the tabachaniótika (Turkish-Cretian songs), urban songs from Smyrni (Izmir) and Constantinople (Istanbul) only to name a few.

“The first ideas for this collaboration were born in Istanbul, during the winter of 2005, mainly in the form of a far away dream. This dream began to materialise four years later in Athens, Greece, one could say almost accidentaly and without pretext. However, we did find many reasons to continue our musical encounters which were characterised by an unorderly manner, but fueled by a whirlwind of ideas and a common sensation of musical euphoria. The tracks of our first album are a sample of the music we fell in love with; the disc is a bridge that connects the dream with reality.”
CihanTürkoglu, Victoria Taskou

“ IT is the ''sense'' that incarnates in sound. Simplified and purified from all definitions , we meet there and invite the passengers that chance on our place to our table adorned with IT’s essence.. ”