Musique concrète caught my attention immediately after reading and hearing about it in class. A genre and music making technique using recorded sounds and tape music techniques that goes back to 1950, an experimental way of making music for its day. While searching on albums using this specific technique I encountered with a famous Turkish electronic music composer, İlhan Mimaroğlu and his 2 track album ‘Tract’ that was released in 1975. Its full title being Tract: A Composition Of Agitprop Music For Electromagnetic Tape the album features recorded sounds of piano, synthesisers, radio signals and vocals from Tülay German -one of my favourite Turkish singers of all time- under the alias Tuly Sand.
The whole album carries a theme of pro-left wing political messages that was inspired by Turkish political poet Nazım Hikmet and Russian Revolution propaganda which can be seen in the title of the work. Agitprop means propaganda and originated from Soviet Russia used to describe popular media.
The album is dark and almost has a feeling of walking through the streets and empty halls of a post-war city. First track ‘Part 1’ opens with a noise drone sound that is supported by French vocals that resembles almost chanting and/or dictating. The almost 19 minute track takes quite the journey with samples from radio, Tülay German’s vocals in English, French and Turkish. Part 2 which is nearly 17 minutes long is almost like a continuation of whatever happened in Part 1 this time with even a darker message and more experimental synthesiser and tape recordings sounds. Most of the track is arrhythmic and drones supported by voice recordings that gives updates about war in countries like Turkey, France and the Soviet. Around 13:40 the track melts into a beautiful and romantic ballad with German’s classic vocal stylings that can be heard in her recordings, haunting and mesmerising. German’s vocals follow an ambient sound of keys and single string samples then ends with a piano chord.
I find the whole piece of work to be very theatrical, dramatic and storytelling. A unique feature which I can’t find in earlier musique concrète records. The work takes the listener on a journey in politics, emotions and melancholic war scenery.
Mimaroğlu, i. (1975) TRACT. In Tract: A Composition of Agitprop Music for Electromagnetic Tape [Vinyl liner notes]. United States: Folkways Records.