For this release, two legendary masters of percussion have paired up and drawn instrumentation from around the globe and beyond to forge something that goes beyond all boundaries of music.
If you’re expecting Jaki Liebezeit (who’s worked with Can, Chet Baker and Depeche Mode) and Holger Mertin (Drums and More) to serve up an hour of drum solos, think again. There’s so much going on across the album’s 13 tracks, and percussion in the sense most fans of western music will understand it is barely half the story.
‘Speedyhang’ shifts from a mistral of eastern mysticism to a thrumming throb atop a dervish of frenetic percussion that’s quite enough to make your head spin.
A clattering metronomic beat underpins the eddying chaos that builds around it, a dense tapestry of sounds, the origins of which are almost impossible to discern: bass throbs and sounds synthetic emerge from the catalogue of acoustic instruments listed against each of the 13 pieces. Gongs create ripples the size of the rings of Saturn while jazz drumming and strange bleeps squeak and slide in expansive deserts of sound. Deep grooves emerge from spacious electro-style neon. Then it spits you out of the Matrix and into deep space and uncharted terrain, all the while spinning eclectic polyrhythmic beats in every direction.
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If you’re wondering, the ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’ defined Aksak as follows: ‘(Turkish: “limping”) an important pattern in the rhythmic structure of folk and vernacular traditional music of the Middle East, particularly Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, and of the Balkans. It is characterized by combinations of unequal beats, such as 2 + 3 and their extensions, particularly 2 + 2 + 2 + 3.’
‘AKŞAK’ finds Liebezeit and Mertin embrace myriad rhythmic styles and the results are not so much world music as other worldly music.
Liebezeit Mertin – AKŞAK Online
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