Catalog Number: DDO13 Color: Black Format: LP UPC: 0788364626127 Singer, songwriter and composer Melike Sahin releases new album Akkor via Gulbaba Records in partnership with Day Dreamer. An empowering assertion of survival that propels traditional Anatolian pop and folk influences into the future, Akkor rises like a phoenix from the flames to reintroduce the Turkish superstar diva to an international audience. An expression of Sahin's personal growth, the album is an affirmation of her growing status as the voice of a generation, and hose lyrics have been adopted as a callto rights for the women's movement in Turkey. Recorded live in London with producer Martin Terefe (London Brew, Buika, Jamie Cullum), Akkor features a selection of the most talented and forward-thinking musicians on the scene, including guitarists Dave Okumu and violinist Raven Bush, as well as terling Campell (David Bowie) on drums, Glen Scott (Eric Bibb) and Nikolaj Torp Larsen on keyboards. Bringing an international feel to her heart-rending performances, the record represents the most focussed and complete expression of Sahin's sound to date. Melike Sahin has made a career of facing down criticism and censorship to make sumptuous and provocative music that captures the defiant tone of progressive creativity in contemporary Turkey. Having performed around the world with Turkish psych legends BaBa ZuLa, Sahin released her debut album Merhem in 2021, gathering billions of streams and building a reputation for unforgettable live performances in the process. Influenced by the style of Sade, cutting an elegant and beguiling figure on the stage. Where Sahin describes Merhem as about healing, she says Akkor is about survival, both on an emotional level, coming to terms with difficult relationships, childhood trauma and the pressures of newfound fame, and on a social level, in continuing the champion the rights of the oppressed in the face of state and media violence. Powerful and vulnerable in equal measure, Akkor demonstrates an orchestral grandeur and a dramatic flair drawn from Sahin's love for traditional Anatolian pop and folk music, injected with the urgency of contemporary production. Bound together by Sahin's inimitable voice Akkor skips between Middle Eastern melancholy and classic disco hedonism, for an album that is as stylistically open, pluralistic and affirmative as the messages the music carries.