(2022) Y Bülbül, Yumurta - Not One, Not Two    


Review:
Musician Yiğit Bülbül (the surname is a singing bird) was born in Turkey but is based in London. The artist known as Yumurta (it means “egg”) is based in Istanbul. Not One, Not Two began with Yumurta’s drum tracks, recorded in what is described as an “industrial estate” in Maslak, a business district in Istanbul, while Y Bülbül took these basic tracks and added layers of bass, synths, guitars and field recordings in his Tottenham, London studio. Bülbül’s 2020 debut was a dreamy, eclectic instrumental work, and his latest, despite its COVID-driven, disembodied process, has a coherent narrative, atmospheric yet somehow perfectly clear, that seems to integrate tradition and modernity, East and West–experimental, with a beat. Opener “What Is Behind that Curtain?” introduces the duo’s m.o., with Bülbül’s electronics and bass line already built on top of percussion that is at first played on some kind of hollow-body wooden drum. You can hear the wood and the hollow, and the organic timbre is in contrast with the swirling, kraut-rocky keys that surround it. But as disparate as the instrumentation is, they’re perfectly integrated, and you’d never know the musicians were playing in wildly different locations and calendrical times. The title vaguely evokes The Wizard of Oz, and the sense that you don’t know who’s pulling the strings backstage. Bülbül and Yumurta pull off a neat interplay, and part of that is a function of the mix and timing; Bülbül doesn’t seem to be playing over a constant drum track, but parcels out the rhythms, which at least on this track is dominated by layers upon layers. Still, despite the perhaps unbalanced division of labor, it truly feels like an organic collaboration, Bülbül building upon beats that, however spare and slightly buried, remain discrete—again, credit the mix: you can hear each element clearly, and, remarkably given the recording circumstances, the multitracked “unit” sounds like it occupies a distinct, airy space. It’s all over in less than three-and-a-half minutes, and one could wish for something more expansive, but the duo’s long-distance ideas are deployed with a concise flair. “Jah Oto,” released as the album’s first “single,” has a more conventional melody, played on keyboards pitched almost at a theremin. And the beat too is more conventional, at the tempo of a steady gait (with supplemental cowbells), marching along as Bülbül adds textures and countermelodies. Even catchier is “Maurin Quina,” the album’s second single. Opening with a keyboard line that sounds out of ‘90s house and played over a dense, twitchy rhythm, the track shifts into a moderate action-movie pace that would suit a neon-drenched neo-noir. The title refers to a French band of absinthe, and arrangement is suitably louche. It’s a quick hit, done in under three minutes. These are mostly short subjects; two successive tracks, “I’m This” and “I’m That” (titles inspired by Moondog) clock in on either end of the two-minute mark, with “This” a showcase for Yumurta’s cymbal work and “That” a downtempo krautrock fragment. The longest track, “Thee Aviary ov Breyers,” (the title comes from Genesis P-Orridge) vaguely suggests a circus or carnival, opening with background bustle from some unidentified metropolis and continuing for eight-and-a-half minutes of reverbed guitars and pulsing percussion. We know something about Yiğit Bülbül—for instance, he used to host a radio show called “Bülbül’s Gemüsement Park.” But who is his skilled remote accompanist? Via DM, Bülbül says only that Yumurta, “is a mysterious man. I’ve known him for years and he’s played with many big names before, under different names, but he chose to start fresh and anonymous [smile emoticon].” Not One, Not Two feels like a journey, even though the musicians didn’t leave their home towns. Won’t you take this journey with them? — spectrumculture


   


Track List:
01 - What is Behind That Curtain
02 - Jah Oto
03 - Maurin Quina
04 - A Large Room Full of People
05 - Küfürbaz Tevfik
06 - I'm This
07 - I'm That
08 - Thee Aviary ov Breyers
09 - Pay No Attention to That Man
10 - Big K


Media Report:
Genre: electronic, jazz, psychedelic rock
Country: London, UK
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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