Kef by Aram Bajakian
 

This thread is an invitation to comment on the album Kef, which is the latest FAIR album club winner. Has anyone been listening to it ? What did you make of it ?

Hey Lisna, I've only listed to two songs on the album, "Sepastia" and "Laz Bar." I didn't love it -- I like more melodic stuff, myself. The guys playing are obviously very talented and the sound is lovely, I wise it could have grabbed me a bit more, though.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks for checking Kef out and responding, misspoptart - as you can see you`re the first to do so. Those two tracks are a bit noisy I guess.There are a couple of softer tracks on the album, I think but unfortunately I don`t have access to the album right now; my computer is being fixed.

Are you really from Instanbul ? I`ve always imagined that as being a beautiful, exotic city, but maybe you see it differently.

I'm not from Istanbul, but I have been living here for 2 years. It is indeed a beautiful, exotic city, with much more to offer than people realize. :)

When you get the album, I'd love to check it out further. How did you hear about Kef?

Ok, misspoptart, I won`t forget, when my regular computer comes back !

I just came across Kef on the internet. As I remember, it was voted "World Album Of The Month" somewhere; maybe on Songlines, if you know that website.

Thanks to stp, here`s some other Armenian music that you might enjoy; it`s a lot more melodic, and a lot more ethnic, than Aram Bajakian :-

Lévon Minassian and Armand Amar's track sounds very familiar to traditional Turkish music also, but there is something much more sad about it. It gives me a very deeply melancholy feeling.

A few of my friends just got back from a trip to Yerevan. They said it was fantastic and that I absolutely had to go. Unfortunately, there are very few flights from Istanbul (you can imagine why), and the busses are not super safe/comfortable. But I'm hoping to plan a trip to both Georgia and Armenia this spring.

Have you been?

No, the closest I`ve been to that part of the world has been Greece and Israel, but I have read (and forgotten!) quite a lot about Asia Minor - there just seems to be so much to like; beautiful scenery, a unique mix of architecture and layer upon layer of history.
So if you make it to Georgia and Armenia, it`ll be like you`re living out a dream of mine, but of course you need to be careful too. I`m curious to know how you get by with language, isn`t it a huge problem ?

It can be, but I have always been attracted to foreign language (since falling in love with Japan around age 14), and I'm used to being "in the dark" about what is being said. After I went to university, I chanced upon meeting a bunch of Romanians and they became my best friends, and I would spend hours (often intoxicated) trying to understand the conversation, until, eventually, I just could. I can't contribute, but I developed a 6th sense for understanding body language, facial expressions, and just the dynamics of a conversation, without the words. In fact, it's kinda like how a baby learns language.

I studied and became fluent in Spanish, Arabic & Japanese before I graduated, and now I'm here in Turkey and the Turkish is coming to me quickly. I can have a conversation with basically anybody, but it's never all that deep. In time...

A surprising amount of people do speak English in this part of the world, and the ones that don't are incredibly friendly all the same. "Getting by" isn't really a problem...the real issues start when they simply give too much!

*___*

I just wrote up my thoughts on the album, but I exited the tab when I meant to check my email :(. I'll write them up again soon, but overall I thought that the album was slightly above average, hence my vote for good.

Wow, that`s a impressive resume, misspoptart. It makes you sound very adventurous, and very patient - two important characteristics for explorers, I suspect.
I, on the other hand, am much more of an armchair traveller; I remember reading about a lone backpacker who decided to swim the Bosphorus, and got arrested by the Turkish police when he struggled out of the water on the far side. In a different travel book, a guy spent a cold and dreary time quizzing people in Gori, Georgia about their attitude to Gori`s most famous son - Joseph Stalin. On both occassions I thought, "Yeah, I`d rather read about this than do it myself." But if you try either of these things, don`t fail to let us know, ok ?

^ Yeah, that`s so annoying ! Hope you won`t be disheartened for long - and thanks, btw, for nominating a new album for the next FAIR club poll. Looks like you`ve found us something very unusual !

Finally got around to giving this album the attention it deserves.

Overall I like the jazzy/ fusiony elements scattered throughout. At times reminiscent of 70s era John McLaughlin (which is a good thing for me). For some reason it took me a while to warm to the album. I started listening to it many times but only got a track or two into it. Maybe the cacophony didn't suit my stress levels? Anyway I'm glad I came back to it and gave it a good listen.

Aram Bajakian seems to have quite a resume (from his web site: Aram Bajakian) exploring a variety of genres. This album has certainly piqued my interest, though there doesn't seem to be many actual recordings of his work.

All up this album gets an overdue excellent from me.

I´m glad you enjoyed this album, stp; I was hoping you would ! Like you suggested, it´s not for relaxing to, and I found that a problem a few times too, although in the end I was won over.

I admire they way they stick to just a handful of instruments, but cover a wealth of moods and textures. I don´t know McLaughlin´s music well enough to pick up on the comparison that you noticed. In fact, with the driving, anarchic guitar on the track Raki I was reminded of Interstellar Overdrive and thought that Kef might have this in common with early Floyd material; bold experimental tracks by artists who enjoy playing around, discovering what they can do while still figuring out what they want to do.

A couple of tracks I particularly noticed:-

> Sumlinian features a guitar workout of the kind usually described as "blistering", and I wonder if the title is a reference to Hubert Sumlin.
> On Wroclaw and Karasalama they dip into some upbeat, almost cheesy, gypsy music, but in keeping with the album in general, they´re just using that as a springboard to head off in some unexpected direction.
> The track 48 days seems to borrow something from And I love her by the Beatles - or am I imagining things ?

So altogether; not an album I´m playing round the clock, but one that impresses me every time I listen to it - Kef gets an "excellent" from me. And thanks for the link, btw, I´ll be checking that out.

Edit: just looked at Aram Bajakian´s modest website and it looks like "Kef" is the name of the band, and not the album, so this thread should really read, "Self-titled album by Aram Bajakian´s Kef". Also surprised to see that AB has played with a whole bunch of famous people, although as stp says, there isn´t much material under his own name.

I've listened to the album again, so here are my belated thoughts.

When I was listening to Kef, I initially thought that the guitarist Marc Ribot was playing the guitar part. However, this was incorrect. The guitarist (Aram Bajakian) has an extraordinarily similar style to Ribot, and I was hoping that the album would go beyond Ribot worship. Fortunately, Ribot is one of my favourite guitarists and the Ribot worship is lauded, even if it comes with the distaste of something that sounds so fresh ending up to have a stale sound.

Luckily the album progresses and the song "Karasalama" lets Bajakian's unique style seep in without seeming like an attempt to emulate Ribot. It clearly takes a skilled musician to play some of these songs, some of which are damn catchy.

When I first gave the album a listen, it sounded as if John Zorn had a hand in this album due to the similar sound quality to Book of Angels and the Klemzerish style of it all. Considering that this album was released on Zorn's label Tzadik, isn't it odd since Ribot is the house guitarist for Tzadik records. Maybe Ribot was one of the leading influences on the album, possibly?

The bass is fun, unique and refrains from creating much cacophony. There were a few songs where I thought that the textures of the instrument didn't quite fit together that I noted when I first listened to the album, but when I listened to it again, I found that they blend together quite nicely. Hopefully Kef can be a group on a John Zorn series similar to Book of Angels, which this sounds like to me.

Overall I'd say that it's a good album, although it did take a little time to warm up to it. Now I feel as if it's something that I would make if I played with a middle eastern based bassist. 7/10

Thanks, Frownland - it´s good to have some input from someone who knows what he´s talking about when it comes to guitarists and guitar playing.
I´m planning to check out the Book of Angels that you mention, and maybe Marc Ribot too. I remember you mentioned Marc Ribot when we talked about Frantz Casseus. Well, that was a style I wasn´t inspired to explore further, but if MR also plays like this Tom Swafford* then, yes, I´m curious.

* I assumed that Aram Bajakian was the principal guitarist, but you´ve clearly done more homework than I did. So what did AB contribute, or did he just sit around and take all the credit !?

Oops, Swafford's the bassist. It's just Aram on my guitar.

^ OK - you realize that I have to cancel your homework points though.

My guitar ? Do you and Aram play the same instrument, Frownland ?

Words such as "the" and "my" are far too similar before I've had my coffee :laughing:. The many typos of Frownland aside, I'd definitely recommend Ribot as you had mentioned in your other post. His album Asmodeus has the same type of high energy guitar that comes out at points throughout the album. He's also played with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and Lounge Lizards among many others, so you may have already listened to him in a group context. His style usually shines through in these side projects, but I think that most of his solo work is astounding.