Recording Studio
First Project in New Studio
(featuring video view of studio and surroundings)30th June 2018
This is the first recording project undertaken since we moved to Yorkshire.
Mustafa is playing traditional music of the Circassian diaspora in Turkey (his ancestors were driven out of the North Caucasus by the Russians in the 19th century). The Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914 would have made Hohner melodeons (diatonic accordions) easily available in Turkey, and the Circassians there seem to have adapted the instrument to their traditional music. These are songs of which some of the words have been lost, but they are still used for dance music at weddings and other social events in the Circassian community.
Mustafa came up from London, where he now lives, to record a CD full of some of these tunes and make 25 CD copies initially. The aim is to keep alive a form of music that is in danger of dying out. We got 14 tracks down in one day, every one in a single take.
This video of an initial soundcheck (shot on a phone by Mustafa's wife Sema) shows some of the interior of the studio and the view from two of the windows.
Note that you are not hearing my recorded sound but that from the phone used to make the video.
All the tracks recorded are now available on Bandcamp.