Music / folkemusik

Port


Reviews (2)


Songlines

d. 3. July 2014

By

By

Simon Broughton

d. 3. July 2014

"Vurdering: Top of the world" - "It's the energy and urgency of Forabandit that impresses the most. There's an unstoppable drive about these songs, performed by Occitan troubadour Sam Karpienia from Marseille and Turkish asik singer Ulas Özdemir from Istanbul. With the ubiquitous Iranian percussionist Bijan Chemirani, they bring together outsider songs from East and West. This is their second album and it makes Forabandit seem more than an intriguing idea - no less than a dynamic pan-Mediterranean force. It mirrors the idea of a common Mediterranean culture, as explored by Marseille's new Villa Méditerranée museum. All the words are translated in the liner notes, but there's a fizzing quality to these songs, accompanied by strummed and plucked strings that make them compelling whether you can understand the words or not".


fRoots

2014 June

By

By

Ian Anderson

2014 June

"A bit of a multi-cultural supergroup featuring Sam Karpienia from Marseille on mandocello and voice, Ulas Özdemir from south-east Turkey on baglama, cura and voice, and Iranian percussionist Bijan Chemirani. Karpienia is a cult figure in Occitan music (...), Özdemir has been a key producer for exemplary Turkish label Kalan and worked live with numerous artists including Niyaz and Kayhan Kalhor; Chemirani is from the celebrated family trio ... Forabandit's original aim was to link the music of the wandering Occitan and Anatolian "asik" troubadours, and on this second album the songs make connections between the ports of Marseille and Istanbul ... For a trio, their sound is massive: they have a way of recording acoustic stringed instruments and hand drum percussion in those regions that is unlike anything that relatively weedy British folk productions ever achieve. Add to that a hugely dynamic delivery - traditionally based music with the energy of rock - andtake-no-prisonersvocals, and the result is truly exhilarating".