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A Screaming Gift for the World Music;
RUŞEN ALKAR / HÊDÎ HÊDÎ (YAVAŞ YAVAŞ)
Ruşen Alkar, meets us with her second music album Hêdî Hêdî. The album is produced by
prolific composer and arranger of avant-garde music Şevket Akıncı. Hêdî Hêdî means Slowly.
In the album Post Punk, Ambient', Contemporary Caz, Krautrock and Funk meets Kurdish
traditional music. The local and the international mingle to make a creolization. Although
Hêdî Hêdî can be generally defined within the Pop-Rock category, in terms of its vocalic
universe, it is difficult to categorize it. Therefore it has a unique musical understanding. Hêdî
Hêdî contains a hopeful darkness and an enthusiastic blues. Ruşen Alkar's distinctive style
together with Şevket Akıncı's powerful arrangements exhibits a bold and tempting attitude
in music.
Ruşen Alkar composes her songs in Kurdish and Turkish. In Hêdî Hêdî she embraces her
culture. In her songs she shares her emotional world with the audience generously. This
time, she enhances her musical world to the reproduction of Kurdish folk songs. Besides her
compositions, she performs two different forms of Kurdish oral literature called Dengbêjî.
Two legendary Dengbêj forms; kilam(Sînano Kirîv), lawik(Dêra Hînê) turns into magic with
Ruşen Alkar's performance and Şevket Akinci's skilful perception. She also performs one
Kurdish stran(Rabe Lawo), a song composed by Aram Dikran.
With Hêdî Hêdî the urban Kurdish music moves a few steps further. The original song Kêm û
Kûr(Lacking and Deep) by Ruşen Alkar is filled with her screams. She travels through the
dialectic of being and not being, compassion and anger in Kêm û Kûr. There are 9 songs in
album consisting of 2 Turkish songs, 4 Kurdish compositions and 3 Kurdish traditional songs.
Alkar likes compounding Kurdish music with new resonances. In Hêdî Hêdî she shows us the
possibility of an individual and melancholic existentialism. The artist promises her audience
to drift them away from the stereotypes in terms of technique and emotion.
Musician Frame:
The Musician frame of Hêdî Hêdî is as rich as Alkar's first album. Ayşe Tütüncü(p), Cem
Aksel(d), Onur Duygulu(g), Yıldırım Yalçınkaya(b) and aranger Şevket Akıncı(g) are the core
contributors of the album. Sumru Ağıryürüyen (mandolin/vocal), Ali Tekbaş, Mehmet Akbaş
(vocal), Ertan Tekin(duduk/ney), Tamer Temel, Serhan Erkol (saxophone), Paşa Çelik(guitar),
Elif Canfeza Gündüz (Clasic kemancha), Volkan Ergen, Nihal Saruhanlı (percussion), Özün
Usta (percussion, cross flute) are the other contributors of the album. All of them are master
musicians in their field. Mix and mastering belongs to Cansun Küçüktürk.