180 Gram Vinyl. 45 RPM. Catalog Number: RUMI014 Color: Black Format: LP UPC: 4270003947329 Schnieke is rich and fruitful, yet carries a sadness within. A 5-string violin charts its melodious journey from Istanbul to Belin, accompanied by electronics, breakbeats, live drums and percussion. An authentic oriental funky mood keeps you in a trance or gets your body moving tribally... This is Schnieke, a.k.a. Ozgur Akgul, with his first studio album Hediye, or Gift. The album is intended as a gift to Ozgur's grandmother, Hadiye, who was very important to him and to whom he dedicates a song. But his debut album will also come as a gift to anyone interested in how a sophisticated musical sensibility brings together electronic elements with stringed instruments of all kinds. Ozgur plays the violins himself, as well as the analogue synths and drum machines. Guest musicians include Hasan Gozetlik (trumpet and trombone), Goksun Cavdar (saxophone), Korhan Erol (electric guitar and bass), Burhan Hasdemir and Baris Guney (live percussion), Zafer Tunc Resuloglu (live drums), John Gurtler (church organ) and the Istanbul Strings, Turkey's most vibrant string ensemble. Their diverse influences create a wide emotional range on Hediye - sometimes dark and melancholic, some-times wild, groovy and danceable, somewhere between jazz, dub and electro, each song surprising in its own way. Despite the variety of the individual songs, a captivating pulse runs like a thread through Schnieke's first album. Incidentally, Ozgur came up with the band name during a night out in a bar, when a friend explained to him what Berlin slang he absolutely had to know. He liked the sound of the word 'schnieke' - it means some-thing approximating 'snazzy' - and perhaps he secretly also wanted to flatter himself a little! Well, shouldn't we all do that much more often? Hediye consists of eight tracks, three of which are traditional: Aman Doktor comes from Istanbul, Ozgur's birth-place, and is a homage to his own origins. Kadioglu comes from the Aegean region and features the zeybek dance form which, despite its 'standardisation' in recent times, still summons up the ecstasy, inspired improvi-sation and musical finesse of its historical roots. The other five tracks are Ozgur's own compositions, with Pasali providing the soundtrack for the 2010 Turkish feature film Memleket Meselesi. Creating compositions for film has been Ozgur's primary passion since his time as a student at the Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg. You can hear that in his music, because on his debut album Ozgur does completely without vocal support, the instrumental depth stands for itself, and, in the style of The Cinematic Orchestra, space is created for us to develop our own images while listening - it is a soundtrack for the film we want to make of it.