jazzhane festival
Shkoon. Bajar. Al-Sarwib. Saitün. Nooriyah. Oceanvs Orientalis. Emel İlter. Emina. mavichan. Melisa Su. Ramin. Daf Connection. Savaş Aslan. Alp Olivier Yorulmaz.
July 15, 2023
Rote Fabrik, Zurich
Photo: Ela Çelik
This was it! The first of its kind and definitely here to stay: the jazzhane festival at the lake Zurich in co-production with Rote Fabrik, bringing you the best from the silk road.
Staying true to our philosophy, we combined music, parties, and knowledge transfer. Daf Connection taught our students (small and tall) the basics of eastern percussion, while Savaş Aslan and Alp Olivier Yorulmaz brought them closer to string instruments from the silk road. With mavichan, our students were introduced to DJing and learned how to beatmatch, the importance of being able to count to four, and simple transitioning.
In the early evening, we kicked off with Saitün, they replaced our band Al-Sarwib from Biel. Later Vedat Yildirim and Bajar took the stage for some Kurdish protest folk rock, before Ameen and Thorben from Shkoon took over for the last open air concert: 1,000 beautiful souls danced in the rain to downtempo electronics combined with Arabic poetry.
At the after party, the Clubbüro was on fire thanks to Nooriyah’s electic and explosive set. Oceanvs Orientalis took over for his eastern techno set, before Melisa closed the Club in the early morning hours. At the Ziegel, Emel rocked the stage with her psychedelic funk gems from the 70ies and 80ies, Emina played her Balkan set, and Ramin closed with his eclectic electro set with gems from the SWANA region.
CONCERTS & PARTIES
CONCERTS & PARTIES
Shkoon
Shkoon, the electro-vocal duo formed by Ameen from Deir ez-Zor and Thorben from Hamburg, blends beautiful Arabic poetry, melodramatic tunes, and traditional folk songs with downbeat, deep house, dub, and hip hop.
Ameen’s voice in combination with Thorben’s dexterity on the piano, synthesizers, and percussions, creates a transcending and incredibly liberating atmosphere on the dancefloor.
The duo met in Hamburg after Ameen had to leave Syria due to the war. Sharing a flat, they realized their shared passion for music only later: a spontaneous jam session and an unexpected explosive energy paved the way for their project, and Shkoon was born.
Bajar
Tenê ez dixwazim, Bêjim em ne xema wan in - All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us!
Bajar, the Kurdish-rock band led by frontman Vedat Yıldırım (founding member of the internationally acclaimed Kardes Türküleri), blends folk, rock, and traditional eastern tunes together: a project born in metropolitan Istanbul’s hybrid neighborhood and streets.
Singing in both Kurdish and Turkish, the band creates music, that is deeply political, challenges and protests the ongoing ghettoization of minorities, racial and cultural discrimination, inequality, democracy, and freedom.
Perhaps, this is best seen in their cover version of «They Don’t Care About Us», which they have recorded with Defjen, a daf-percussion-collective from Istanbul. A tour de force: reinterpreting and blending Michael Jackson’s masterpiece with Eastern tunes, switching Brazilian percussions with the Daf, and adding Vedat’s strong Kurdish voice, the song is a call - once again and after more than a quarter of a century - for freedom and justice.
Al-Sarwib
Asymmetry defines Al-Sarwib’s music. A seven-headed hydra (original wording of the band) born in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, Al-Sarwib gathered around Fabrice Pittet (founding member and drummer) and the desire to create asymmetrical music, nurtured by each member’s very own story and universe: folk, blues, stoner, hip-hop, psychedelia, oriental tunes, and African rhythms.
Their albums (Mesa, 2017 and Loin des Terres, 2021) are entrenched with stories: here you have Lei, a hunted fugitive woman writing a love letter to her son. Mesa was recorded live, spontaneously, laying the foundations of a musical universe that called for evolution and metamorphosis. There you have Louies, Lei’s son, an orphan in search of his identity, supported by the mage Alzar. This is an album out of time, out of the streaming platforms, and out of the digital world: an aesthetic object, completed by seven videos directed by Joarimus Papim.
Saitün
Bored of the boundaries of western pop music, the boys of Swiss Psychedelic-World-Rock, Saitün question solidified structures in their earlier artistic work, and explore new possibilities.
That diversity of genres and cultural identities is woven into a playful firework. Releasing two singles with English and Turkish titles in 2018 «4 Matches On Tinder/Dort Maç Üzerinde Tinder» and «Stomach Is A Graveyard/Midem Bir Mezarlık», they perform on several festival stages in Switzerland. Later, Saitün drop their debut full-length album Al’Azif in 2022.
You’ll listen to their songs and realize a «we don’t give a fuck» attitude that is rare in Switzerland: their lyrics are witty and humorous, eastern influences are prominently arranged with psychedelic tunes and stoner rock, making you wonder whether the guys are originally from İstanbul or really from Basel. Apparently, nobody gives a fuck.
Nooriyah
Connecting dots between diverse global music cultures; Nooriyah has made it her mission to blur those same lines, thereby creating a vivid musical diversity in her work without being told she can’t merge those vast musical communities.
Born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Japan, and now living in the UK, Nooriyah is a DJ, producer, and presenter. She has spent the past decade championing the sounds of the diaspora.
Her eclectic sets create explosive dance floor energy. This is best shown on her debut boiler room show «Middle of Nowhere» in London, which surpassed over 1 million streams within the first 3 months.
Gaining international acclaim, she performed at venues and festivals around the globe, such as Glastonbury or Nitsa.
Oceanvs Orientalis
Oceanvs Orientalis (Kanto Records) is an altered musical formation that aims to challenge the aesthetic perception in neo-electronic music. It’s a one-person-multi-minded action in various ways.
The philosophy of the project is to examine the archaeological tunes of humankind’s cumulative musical history and in this very context believes that «everything comes from the East».
Considered one of the pioneers of neo-electronica in his home country of Anatolia and in the rest of the world, he uses electronic music to carry the exotic vibes he grew up with to the dancefloor, transforming irregular local rhythms into 4/4 electronic beats.
mavichan
Like many of us, mavichan calls more than one place home: growing up in Vigo, Galicia, Spain, she lived in Germany before she moved to Zurich in 2007.
Having graduated in musicology in Salamanca, she is fascinated by ethnomusicology, that is, she is interested in how music is created in sociological and cultural settings.
A music teacher by day (piano), and an electronic music producer and dj by night, she blends house, breakbeat, and techno, thereby experimenting with different genres, such as dub, bass, hip hop, and drum’n’bass.
She has been supporting the Kokon collective and giving monthly djing workshops at GDS.FM. At the jazzhane festival, mavichan will be hosting a djing workshop for kids and adults before she plays her live set at night.
Melisa Su
Melisa Su Taşkıran is an actress, DJ, and producer from Ankara. Studying at the faculty of music and performing arts at Bilkent University, Melisa started out as a techno dj in Ankara’s clubs, soon to be performing in clubs and festivals in Turkey’s largest cities İstanbul, Izmir, and Ankara. A resident DJ and music curator in Ankara’s nightlife, she played alongside Oliver Koletzki, Charlotte De Witte, Adam Beyer, Chris Liebing, or Sezer Uysal.
Her story takes her to another capital, this time to Switzerland, where she continued her studies at the Bern Academy of the Arts. Pursuing a dual career in acting and music production, she plays her DJ sets in Bern and performs at larger festival stages, such as Gurten, We Love Techno, or Sensebeschallung.
Her sets feature heavy bass lines where she blends different sub-genres including Acid and Detroit.
Emel İlter
Growing up in Düsseldorf and moving to Lucerne before her story took her to Basel, Emel İlter has been collecting records for years. A passionate «soul selecta», DJ, and radio host, she is currently presenting pieces of her record collection on NTS Radio with her regular show «Heavy Love Affair» and curates her monthly music special «Soul Sketches» on Radio XBasel together with invited guests.
Emel is part of the «Spin Club Lucerne» alongside Henning Börm, with whom she has been organizing the annual rare soul event «NOT TOO YOUNG Swiss Soul Weekender» in Lucerne for 11 years.
Having started collecting Hip Hop samples, she realized the vast diversity of soul music, and fell in love with the mellow, sweet, funky-edged, and obscure masterpieces. Her passion took her to stages in Switzerland and Europe, where she has been playing her sets for years.
Unsurprisingly, her collection of original «Kırkbeşlik» (45 EPs) includes exceptional Turkish funk and psychedelic rock gems from the 60ies and 70ies, giving her soulful sets an eclectic touch and proving how music evolves and is recreated in rich and diverse social and cultural settings.
Ramin
DJ and producer of Swiss (Geneva) and Iranian (Tehran) origin, Ramin is a resident of the Club Salaam nights at La Gravière Live Club in Geneva, and curator of radio shows on Noods Radio and Radio Alhara.
Edits, remixes, and music inspired by the cultures of South-West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), Ramin shares with his audience a rich repertoire ranging from pop and disco to electronics. Versatile and passionate, he invites you to discover an eclectic universe through his live sets.
Formerly touring as a duo with Ramin&Reda, Ramin performed on stages, such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, Transmusicales de Rennes, or Paléo Festival in Nyon.
Emina
Calling herself a dream dancer, Emina has been playing extraordinarily energetic and explosive sets on Swiss’ club stages for years.
Living in Zurich with roots in Bosnia, she is the founder of Eministan and Jugoton Sound Sistem. She calls her sets a freshly prepared stew of Balkan beats, Romani brass orchestra, socialist funk, progressive rock, and new wave.
This is a deliberate choice as her diverse music selection melts into a joyful and melodic unity.
Daf Connection
Daf Connection is a percussion group that started in 2013 with three friends under the direction of Sultan Kara.
Sultan developed the Daf/Erbane ryhtm and notation system and shared it with her students. The group grew into an association in 2019 and counts more than 50 members, most of them women. The strong community reaches a wide audience and provides a platform for diverse people, cultures, and languages to meet and exchange.
The Daf/Erbane has been played by women in Mesopotamia for centuries, expressing their feelings at weddings or in religious rituals. Strongly believing in music’s great potential for healing, Sultan describes the positive energy, love, and peace she feels when playing her favorite percussion instrument of choice.
Sultan and her friends will give a percussion workshop for kids and adults at the jazzhane festival.
Savaş Aslan
Born in Erzincan in 1976, Savaş Aslan attended Arif Sağ’s (a legendary Alevi musician and Saz player from Erzurum) music school as a teenager. He later attended the İstanbul Technical University, where he graduated from the Folk Music Conservatory.
Together with his friends at college, he co-founded the band «Güneşe Türkü», recorded a CD in 1997, and performed in Turkey and abroad. A master of the Saz, Savaş has played together with Anatolian folk and rock stars, such as Hüseyin Karakuş, Servet Kocakaya, Cem Yıldız, Müslüm Eke, Kutsal Evcimen, Agire Jiyan, Erdal Erzincan, Yavuz Bingöl, Grup Munzur, Grup Amed, Sevingül Bahadir, Türkü, or Haluk Levent.
He continued to perform as a soloist in the folk group, that was supported by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. In 2021, he had to leave Turkey and moved to Zurich, where he continues his profession and passion both as a musician and as a music teacher.
In April 2022, Savaş performed at the first Psychedelic Music Explosion at the renowned Jazz Club Moods together with Alican Tezer, Barış K., and Alp Olivier Yorulmaz, a true transformative jam performance that paved the way for all editions of the Psychedelic Music Explosion.
Alp Olivier Yorulmaz
Alp Olivier Yorulmaz, a talented multi-instrumentalist from Colmar and living in the French part of the triangle (Dreiländereck) close to Basel, is from Uşak in Turkey. Starting to play the Bağlama, the defining instrument of Anatolian music, at the age of six, he later mastered other string instruments, such as the Oud, the Cümbüş, the Kabak Kemâne (the pumpkin violin), and the Kemancheh.
A passionate musician, Alp Olivier expanded his skills by learning from different teachers and masters. Believing to have inherited his love for music from his grandfather, he continues to play together with his friends and performs on stages in Europe.
Together with Savaş Aslan, Alican Tezer, and famous DJ Barış K., he rocked the stage at the first Psychedelic Music Explosion at the Jazz Club Moods.
Beyond the stage and music scene, he makes people fly comfortably as a cabin crew member for Swiss.
