Ilhan Ersahin Vinyl, CD & Tape 5 Items

Confusion is good sometimes. It’s a way to start thinking about whatever you are confused about. This is what Ilhan Ersahin’s Istanbul Sessions do since 2008. They managed to fire the stages all across the world: from New York to Istanbul, from Paris to Sao Paolo, from London to Skopje... Questions they spread all these years where like: are they really turkish? is this really jazz? doesn’t it sound like a rock band? how come a jazz ensemble can really be like a band? How can they be so able to jam with any musician they meet on stage? And so on... It’s a simple fact Ilhan Ersahin, being one of the rare moguls of New York City underground scene via his club and record label (nublu), is traveling all around the world. It’s possible to see him jamming with Red Hot Chili Peppers in Sao Paolo, featuring Bugge Wesseltoft in Blue Note Tokyo and/or playing a beautiful oriental set with turkish gypsies in an elegant concert hall somewhere in Europe. His newyorker energy is with him all the time. How about Istanbul Sessions then? It’s a summary of all you read above. Master level musicianship meets a high eclecticism where the cliche of “east-to-west crossover” finds its true sense and power. A session is a meeting of a deliberative body to conduct its business. In this case, the business is music, and the music is another heavyweight long player from Ilhan Ersahin & crew. Upon listening to the record for the first time, one word overrides every other emotion and devours the mind: Cinema. More specifically, “cinematic.” Ersahin’s sax sounds like it was recorded in the fucking Alps. Or in the sweeping sand dunes and Oasis’s of the Middle East. It’s just that W I D E. On “Falling,” Ersahin’s sax is practically 3-dimensional. Double tracked and bathed in a healthy dose of reverb, the saxophone and rhythm of the band evoke a story-like narrative. From the mad-man trills strewn throughout the track, to the soaring, almost stadium anthem chorus. Clearly, it’s all about the (s)axe, and Ilhan Ersahin is YOUR axeman. History has a tendency to repeat itself, and for the third time ‘round, East meets West once again. And the results are more satisfying than that mammoth inter-racial orgy you’re always fantasizing of. Through Ersahin’s playing, you can hear the ghostly echoes of dead, pre-war jazz greats behind his frenzy-inducing saxophone playing. You can also hear the Siren’s call, the brooding beauty of the shrouded mystery that is the Desert. Devilishly hot and bothered, the dry night air caresses your face, stirring a primal urge that excites as you step out into the glow of the Turkish metropolis. An Istanbul session, awaits.

Oceanvs Orientalis and Ilhan Ersahin first entered each other's orbits by chance at a performance at Turkey's Cappadox Festival in 2018. Oceanvs Orientalis is renowned for his fusion of Eastern musical motifs and traditions with cutting-edge electronica while Ilhan Ersahin has long plowed a unique path uniting assorted musical strains from around the world via an exploratory jazz-improv sensibility. Following two tracks ("Mesta" and "Pire") co-written by Ilhan and OvO and released as collaborations, and two more Ersahin/OvO co-writes ("Revenge Of The Wankers" and "Television") released under OvO's name alone, a fresh and exciting new song called "1980" now heralds a full-length collaboration slated to land in Spring 2024.

"On their first album as a trio, these jazz-rooted musicians create a luxurious atmosphere drawing from funk, krautrock, and noirish electronica." Andy Cush / Pitchfork "this is project is sick. Love the tunes, you definitely capture a hypnotic fusion of like smoking hash in a dangerous alley in Tangier, but also a very trippy laid back and louche LA cool.” Jeff Weiss With drummer Kenny Wollesen (Tom Waits, John Zorn, Norah Jones) and Dave Harrington (of electronic duo Darkside) guitar/bass/electronics, New York-based Swedish/Turkish saxophonist, composer, club-label owner Ilhan Ersahin captures the vibe of impromptu, cross-pollinating, and heavily grooving late-night jam sessions at Nublu, his “East Village Club where everything goes” (New York Times). The telepathy and intuition that flows between these three musicians is one that has developed over many years of playing together in different combinations, and on a permanent regular basis at NYC's Nublu, searching and creating together in the moment. What they have come up with has evolved steadily over that time and its current form can be heard to brilliant effect on their debut album “Invite Your Eye” (2022). The exploratory instrumental space-jazz these gentlemen purvey has many antecedents and influences but perhaps it's best not to cite names and instead let the music speak for itself.