BAJAR / The City

By Gökhan Birdal / 27_October_2010

The success of their musical fusion is hid in their motto: The Euphrates’ water
fused into Marmara. This line might create a cool background image when
listening their music as it implies lots of different accentuations; on one hand, “the
cradle” character of great Istanbul, a feature that can merely be found in great
metropolises, allowing to ease racial / ethnical / religious tensions
simultaneously; on the other, the great Euphrates is there - a river that fed many
civilizations, flows behind our eardrums.

Nowadays, in Istanbul, kitschy, “tourist fusion” type of productions are quite

prevalent around. People are pouring over from different countries and their
growing interest, both from East and West, provide a good customer basis for
easy cultural consumption. Quite contrary to this fact, Bajar’s music establishes a
defensive point against the “over-ethnicization” of the Kurdish culture, especially
modern Kurdish music.

The project follows a path, on which identity needs of modern subjects in urban
life are explored, intermingling urban popular forms with the mideastern musical
heritage, whilst avoiding naïve interpretations that could provoke nostalghia. Not
only Kurdish, but also Turkish language, or bilingual forms are used in Bajar’s
music echoing the multicultural aspects of Türkiye. Their works, which are
informed by punk and black musical traditions, address several important issues
created by the discrimination culminated in cultural hierarchy, gettofication;
emphasising the need for new cultural norms in the daily societal relations.

Transformation is always a key word when you look at a society, especially when
you look at a society forced to be existing under capitalism, a system which
constantly revolutionizes the productive relations within it, in order to survive. Not

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surprisingly, possible cultural articulations attached to this colossal productive
system are changing in line with it, too.

This transformative power of capitalism was portrayed before by Yilmaz Guney,

the legendary Kurdish film director, in one of the sequences in Yol. The metaphor
is built upon a plough, which shatters the soil, to describe how modern
techniques break societal relations simultaneously, from a Marxian point of view:
Anything that changes the productive relations, changes the society at all levels.
This école of reflexive attitude finds an echo in Bajar’s music, discarding the
reactionary, foolish descriptive interpretation that usually accompanies modern
Kurdish reality with feudal dark ages. Urbanization & modernization are growing
trends in both Turkish and Kurdish societies, and Bajar quite successful to
accomplish the goal of expressing the effects of these trends, whilst staying loyal
to the Kurdish sonic context.

The tonal qualities of their music is successfully reflecting the idea behind their
music, fusing 2 great waters! Highly interwoven harmonical structures, timbral
elements, which could be a risk to experiment in other settings, become a norm
in their music. Electronic textures blend eloquently with authentic grooves.
Sample loops are in harmony with repetitive bass lines and jazzy drums. Back-
vocals adjust the tension between different elements and supply the necessary
ethnical ingredient. Lyrics enable them to express new realities, empower them
to push the limits of old thematic frames. Their voicing, choir style is sometimes
reminiscent of black gospel traditions. - Argument can be expanded to the point
that the vocal singing tradition is developed dominantly as a result of the lack of
written form. - Same applies to Turkish folk music.

Notwithstanding their musical style is the manufacture of all group members,

Wedat Yildirim’s leadership is crucial, who is also one of the creative minds
behind the highly acclaimed, multi-lingual Kardeş Türküler project.

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Bajar, seemingly, will continue to explore the new possibilities, intersections,
superpositions that could occur between the layers of all these rich cultural
traditions with a novel attitude that is observed rarely in our geography. Their
music repatriates itself in a some sort of terranova, a new found land, waiting to
be heard.

Bajar are:

Vocals: Wedat Yıldırım / Burak Korucu

Electric guitar: Emre Kula

Bass guitar: Ari Hergel

Keyboards & electronics: Ferhat Güneş

Drums: Erdem Göymen