I go on a lot about Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s photography and filmmaking, and he is certainly renowned throughout Turkey, but most people don’t realise that his sister, Emine, is an accomplished photographer in her own right. Her work goes down another type of path— it’s haunting in a different way, as well as being a more cosmopolitan complement to Nuri’s heavy Turkish influences. Link

“The Siege,” by Erol Akyavaş, is going up for auction at the beginning of March. It’s Akyavaş’s masterwork, and is considered to be one of the top five most important modern Turkish paintings. It’s expected to fetch a price somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million dollars (USD). I’ll probably have to pass on this one, beautiful as it is; at a size of nearly 4m across, I just don’t have the room for it. Link

As of yesterday, Vogue magazine now officially has a Turkish version. Apparently it’s a limited edition that’s causing quite a stir. To be honest, I hadn’t really realised before that there wasn’t a Turkish Vogue. Perhaps it’s because we get every other international version of the magazine already, and to me this just seems like another one cluttering up the stands. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything in particular against fashion magazines; I just don’t really see the need to have so many multiple versions of each one. Can’t we just have an international Vogue that gets translated into each country’s local language? I suppose this is paper magazines fighting against their own inevitable death… but I think they’re diversifying in the wrong direction. Link

I’m always looking for photos that don’t sit anywhere on the axis between “tourist snaps” and “glossy pro shots.” I like photos that are off the beaten path, both in style and content. I absolutely love this set of photos from Canadian photographer Ali Bosworth. He visited Turkey last year, and captured it in a way not many photographers manage. Nostalgia is heavy in this set, and even if you’ve never been to Turkey before, you’ll feel like you’re looking at shots that remind you of trips you took long ago. Amazing work. Link

If you’re feeling ambitious after that Istanbul set, Bosworth has an entire collection of sets from his trip to Greece and Turkey, including a second Istanbul set, and some photos from other areas of Turkey, as well. Definitely worth a look. Link

One of my favourite bloggers, over at The Turkish Life, has posted her take on the New York Times article I posted about last week. Whereas I was glad to see an American paper even mentioning Istanbul, she has some suggestions for improvements to their reportage on the subject. Since I’m just an overwhelmed tourist myself when it comes to our largest city, it’s interesting to hear what a local has to say about it. Link

I’ve often been met with strange looks when I’ve told people how incredible Turkish art can be, but it seems that the rest of the world is catching on, as well. Hürriyet Daily News has the story of how the Turkish art market has not only withstood the economic crisis, it has thrived. Link

THY just can’t seem to get it right with the ads… either that or this is their new Segway plane. Photoshop Disasters went with the Viagra joke; props to them for that one. Link

The guy who thought up this concept? I can’t even imagine how fired he is. It would almost be funny were it not for THY’s abysmal safety record.

Seen at Failblog.

Anyone who has known me for more than five minutes knows I’m a firm believer in the power of Creative Commons music releases. In fact, I love CC music so much that I review albums over at Frostclick just to help support the community. One thing I’ve been frustrated about in past years, however, is the lack of any decent Turkish CC releases. Don’t get me wrong, I can deal with Turkish pop as well as the next person… up to a point. Of course, there are those kids out there who would rather die than go pop, and thus was born the Turkish independent death metal scene… which I can also tolerate up to a point. My tastes in metal tend toward the old-school.

The last time I did any in-depth checking, which was a couple of years ago, pretty much all the Turkish CC music I found was thrashy. Meh.

Then a couple of days ago it occurred to me to look again, specifically for artists in Turkey, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how much things have developed. There are at least half a dozen genres to choose from now, including trip-hop, disco, and post-rock.

Today I unearthed a little gem called Limited Hope, by an artist called Fuzzy Deal.

It’s a little trippy, a little nu-loungey, and completely chilled. Check it out:

If you like what you hear, you can download the album here. Creative Commons releases are free, available to everyone, and 100% legal. Enjoy.

In case you’re the last person in the world to hear about these things… the new Zero7 album is out. I don’t think this one got quite as much hype as The Garden, which is a shame, because to my ears, Yeah Ghost is a much more interesting offering. The Garden was one of those albums I loved eventually, mostly out of brand loyalty. But I digress.

I was a little bit worried about listening to Yeah Ghost, because reviewers were saying that it was a radical departure, and that musically it was “scattered all over the place” and had no cohesion. Personally, I think it holds together just fine. More to the point, it is radically different, while still managing to be undeniably Zero7. It’s difficult to accomplish “completely different” and “still the same” simultaneously. I think they did a pretty good job with both, and the reconciliation of those two apparent opposites in the context of a 45-minute record is nothing short of inspired.

I cannot say that I am absolutely in love with Yeah Ghost yet (aside from “Mr. McGee,” a song which I had on repeat for about six hours yesterday). But as mentioned above, I wasn’t in love with The Garden at first, either, and in any case I already like Yeah Ghost better than I ever liked The Garden, despite the fact that there’s no Sia Furler this time around (my obsession with her is well-known, but she makes her own albums now, so I get my fix there). My relationship with The Garden is of the variety that when you make the commitment to love someone, you even love the worst things about them, because that comes with the package. Yeah Ghost has been a pleasant surprise by comparison.

Murakami would have told you so
If you catch him, will you let me know?
Bobbing apples in the studio
Aikido, Aikido-si-do

This put a huge smile on my face, but then when I Googled “Murakami would have told you,” I discovered that the BBC reviewer singled that verse out as cringingly embarrassing proof that this album is mostly crap. Guess he’s not a fan of surreal imagery. He also went on to say that he thought maybe Zero7’s time had passed, but I absolutely don’t buy that. This album is quite a step up from the last one (but admittedly nothing will ever touch the first two). Also, I disagree with the assessment that Yeah Ghost is stuck in the late ’90s. I don’t hear any evidence to support that at all. Most of the production technique on this album wasn’t even possible ten years ago, and the musical style reflects that, as well. All I hear is fresh, fresh, fresh. And if there’s a little Basement Jaxx nostalgia sprinkled over certain areas, I’m willing to bet it was not only intentional, it was firmly tongue-in-cheek. For me, it only adds to the charm, because Zero7 is one of those groups who has always managed to manipulate me into thinking about the good ol’ days, regardless of how modern their range of styles can be.

As with any significant change, Yeah Ghost will take some getting used to. I’m okay with that, especially since the change is distinctly in the electronica direction. I think a lot of the naysayers either (A) will come around eventually, or (B) are only into the modern-Muzak aspect of Zero7, and aren’t interested in innovation. You can’t please all the people all the time, but I do think there’s something on Yeah Ghost for just about everyone.

And hey, the new Air album is out next month, so we might still get our Muzak after all.