Limpid Pools: DeVotchKa and "Dark Eyes"

DeVotchKa, a Denver-based band, performs our random tune for today. A four piece ensemble, their name is derived from the Russian word for "girl." Their instrumentation, besides guitar, drums and bass can include theremin, bouzouki, accordion and sousaphone. DeVotchKa started as a backing band for burlesque shows, and in particular traveled with and backed noted burlesque performer Dita von Teese. During this time they were also self-releasing records and touring in support of them which earned them an underground following. The band was eventually picked by the directors of Little Miss Sunshine to score the film which earned them a Grammy nomination for best soundtrack. The band, while essentially a rock ensemble, incorporates a gypsy punk feel into many of its songs. This song, Dark Eyes (Ochi Chernye), is on their 2008 CD SuperMelodrama. The song is a famous Ukrainian love song, written in the mid-1800s, referencing the burning desire for a lover.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

The Beauty Inside: Göksel and "Ayrilik Günü"

When I went to Turkey, about 3 years ago now, I was amazed to stand at a crossroads of civilization. Both in the past and the present, Turkey served as an intersection of cultures and histories. Istanbul in particular struck me as a major crossroads in Turkey, one that has served that capacity in history and geography for thousands of years. One of the interesting things to do in Turkey is to watch its people. Today, just as in the past, you see almost all aspects of Turkey reflected in its people, and especially in its women.

Walk along a city street in Istanbul, and notice especially the dress of its women. Whereas men pretty much dress the same - slacks and shirts or jeans and shirts - its women dress in all manner of ways. There are women dressed very much in western styles, such as dresses or pants and blouses, with long flowing hair. You can also see women dressed in what has become a form of moderate Islamic dress, modest with flashes of design and color, featuring less colorful clothes that do not flatter the figure and hair covered with scarves. It is in the scarves that the fashion comes out - brightly colored with patterns. The scarf serves to frame and accentuate the face but nothing more. You may also see women dressed in more conservative Islamic dress - all in black with face covered. What is interesting is to watch childhood friends - two women walking alongside each other laughing and talking, one in complete Western dress and the other in moderate Islamic dress.

I am reminded of this aspect of modern Turkey because of today's artist. Ayrilik Günü by Göksel is a pop tune about a farewell to a lover. It's lyrics are very poetic:

My love, I have a scar of a wound on my heart

My love, strangers begrudged at our love

You were an unfading flower in the spring of my heart

You were more real than everything in this false world

Farewell, today is farewell day

Farewell, today is farewell day

Today is farewell day, let our tears drop

Our real love has turned into the world of mortality

One can not love without being loved, a dead (arid) tree wouldn't bend

Heart is creation of Allah(God), heart can never be touched

(translation by pinar85 at AllTheLyrics.com)
However, Göksel herself has, in the past, written songs addressed specifically toward women. One song, Taş Bebek (Doll), she cowrote with Ferman Akgül, Alper Erinç and Turkish rock star Teoman. It addresses the suffering of women to always have to be beautiful, and encourages them to focus on the beauty inside and the things that they offer rather than always dolling themselves up for men. When I read that, it reminded me of all of those aspects of women that I saw in Turkey.

Born in Istanbul as Göksel Demirpençe, Göksel initially studied philosophy, but quit university to pursue a career in music. She was a backup singer to Sezen Aksu and Sertab Erener, both very famous female Turkish artists. She released her first solo album in 1997, and has since had nine album releases (one of which was a best-hits album allegedly released by her record company without her permission or participation). She has challenged some other barriers in that area of the world by performing with Greek group Omega Vibes at a concert in Babylon (Turkey and Greece have been historic enemies). You can find Ayrilik Günü on Göksel's 2003 release Söz Ver and on Putumayo Presents: Turkish Groove (2006).

Sweet Ardor and Misery: Ani Cordero and "Macorina"

How many of us look back on our young days with some longing? Everything felt so much more alive then, because we were so young and our bodies were overflowing with chemicals and hormones! The loves and losses that I had when I was a young man were the loves and losses that I felt strongest - everything had such a black and white quality to it. Every love was the greatest, and every loss was the keenest.

Those memories were sweet, and something that we can look fondly back upon and remember those strong emotions, but I'm not sure that I would want to go back to them. You can only have your heart broken once to have those callouses and protective barriers grow around you. Once your innocence of love and loss is compromised, there isn't any going back to those sweet days when you felt so much and were willing to give so much to keep those feelings of love going and going as long as possible, and the feelings of melancholy and sadness also. Because I will admit it - I reveled just as much in the sadness and melancholy of loss as I did in the first buds of a crush, or the first attentions of a new love. Now, at my ripe age of 50, it's hard to feel that kind of excitement and those rapid swings of emotion again, and frankly I think I'm better off for it. But sometimes, I look back and remember the passions of youth and wonder what it might be like to feel them in all their sweet ardor and misery once again.

Today's song is a reinterpretation of a classic Latin love song song by a rising star in the Latin music world. Macorina by Ani Cordero, was originally sung by Costa Rican singer Chavela Vargas, and its lyrics bring me back to those heady days as a young man and promises of love that each of us directly or indirectly experienced. Ani Cordero is a Puerto Rican-born musician who started her music career in Tucson, Arizona fronting a band bearing her own last name, Cordero. In 2000, accompanied by her husband, musician Chris Verene, she moved to New York and reformed the band and toured nationally with Calexico and Los Lobos, among others. By 2005, she had become quite well known in the New York rock scene, and she joined a new Latino pop and folklorico group called Pistolera. Macorina is from her first solo album Recordar: Latin American Songs of Love and Protest, in which she sings eleven songs of political and social significance in Latin America. It was released in April of 2014.