2023

3.5 stars. Baris Manco was well known in Turkey not only for his hit songs, but he was an actor and TV host as well. He seemed to have that perfect formula of combining traditional Turkish folk music with what was then modern rock music. The people of Turkey ate it up. His one single sold well over 700,000 copies. I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for this his debut studio album from 1975 that he would be on the site here under Prog Related.

Folk actually makes more sense in many ways, but this debut features his foray into prog as we get a concept album about the year 2023. So yesterday. Actually my plan all along had been to review this is 2023, but after a spin of this record last year I decided to put it off. This is the album where he brings out the Korg 700 synth and the solina string synth to create some spacey music for the concept. Some spoken narration too but all the words on this album are in the Turkey language. Gobble gobble.

So Baris has combined that spacey style with songs that are straight up ethnic folk with vocals. And I have to say some of it is hard to take. I also feel that as a singer songwriter Baris is very talented. He's playing his 18 string on this album for the most part, plus we get some ethnic instruments like the saz and more. I have to mention that fifth track because it's a trippy hand percussion led piece with flute that is so Krautrock. I love it.

There's as many misses as hits on this album for my tastes, but I have a respect now for this artist after spending time with "2023".