Kef by Aram Bajakian
 

This thread is an invitation to comment on the album Kef, which is the latest FAIR album club winner. Has anyone been listening to it ? What did you make of it ?

Hey Lisna, I've only listed to two songs on the album, "Sepastia" and "Laz Bar." I didn't love it -- I like more melodic stuff, myself. The guys playing are obviously very talented and the sound is lovely, I wise it could have grabbed me a bit more, though.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks for checking Kef out and responding, misspoptart - as you can see you`re the first to do so. Those two tracks are a bit noisy I guess.There are a couple of softer tracks on the album, I think but unfortunately I don`t have access to the album right now; my computer is being fixed.

Are you really from Instanbul ? I`ve always imagined that as being a beautiful, exotic city, but maybe you see it differently.

I'm not from Istanbul, but I have been living here for 2 years. It is indeed a beautiful, exotic city, with much more to offer than people realize. :)

When you get the album, I'd love to check it out further. How did you hear about Kef?

Ok, misspoptart, I won`t forget, when my regular computer comes back !

I just came across Kef on the internet. As I remember, it was voted "World Album Of The Month" somewhere; maybe on Songlines, if you know that website.

Thanks to stp, here`s some other Armenian music that you might enjoy; it`s a lot more melodic, and a lot more ethnic, than Aram Bajakian :-

Lévon Minassian and Armand Amar's track sounds very familiar to traditional Turkish music also, but there is something much more sad about it. It gives me a very deeply melancholy feeling.

A few of my friends just got back from a trip to Yerevan. They said it was fantastic and that I absolutely had to go. Unfortunately, there are very few flights from Istanbul (you can imagine why), and the busses are not super safe/comfortable. But I'm hoping to plan a trip to both Georgia and Armenia this spring.

Have you been?

No, the closest I`ve been to that part of the world has been Greece and Israel, but I have read (and forgotten!) quite a lot about Asia Minor - there just seems to be so much to like; beautiful scenery, a unique mix of architecture and layer upon layer of history.
So if you make it to Georgia and Armenia, it`ll be like you`re living out a dream of mine, but of course you need to be careful too. I`m curious to know how you get by with language, isn`t it a huge problem ?

It can be, but I have always been attracted to foreign language (since falling in love with Japan around age 14), and I'm used to being "in the dark" about what is being said. After I went to university, I chanced upon meeting a bunch of Romanians and they became my best friends, and I would spend hours (often intoxicated) trying to understand the conversation, until, eventually, I just could. I can't contribute, but I developed a 6th sense for understanding body language, facial expressions, and just the dynamics of a conversation, without the words. In fact, it's kinda like how a baby learns language.

I studied and became fluent in Spanish, Arabic & Japanese before I graduated, and now I'm here in Turkey and the Turkish is coming to me quickly. I can have a conversation with basically anybody, but it's never all that deep. In time...

A surprising amount of people do speak English in this part of the world, and the ones that don't are incredibly friendly all the same. "Getting by" isn't really a problem...the real issues start when they simply give too much!

*___*

I just wrote up my thoughts on the album, but I exited the tab when I meant to check my email :(. I'll write them up again soon, but overall I thought that the album was slightly above average, hence my vote for good.

Wow, that`s a impressive resume, misspoptart. It makes you sound very adventurous, and very patient - two important characteristics for explorers, I suspect.
I, on the other hand, am much more of an armchair traveller; I remember reading about a lone backpacker who decided to swim the Bosphorus, and got arrested by the Turkish police when he struggled out of the water on the far side. In a different travel book, a guy spent a cold and dreary time quizzing people in Gori, Georgia about their attitude to Gori`s most famous son - Joseph Stalin. On both occassions I thought, "Yeah, I`d rather read about this than do it myself." But if you try either of these things, don`t fail to let us know, ok ?

^ Yeah, that`s so annoying ! Hope you won`t be disheartened for long - and thanks, btw, for nominating a new album for the next FAIR club poll. Looks like you`ve found us something very unusual !