AySay

Su Akar is AySay’s first full-length album. The folk trio from Denmark self-confidently proclaiming to be crossing borders between cultures, have someone carrying two cultures within herself in their singer Luna Ersahin, her mother being Danish, her father a Kurd from Turkey. The threesome is completed by Aske Døssing Bendixen on analog and digital percussion and Carl West Hosbond on guitar. Translated from Turkish, the album title means “water flows” and alludes to the Turkish proverb Su akar, yolunu bulur. – “Flowing water will always find its way.”

The message conveyed, in its simplicity, sums up AySay’s positive and hopeful approach to their music. With the help of different languages and cultural influences the band tries to find a shared handle to hold on to in a world that way too often insists on narrow-minded ideas of nationality and identity.

AySay have already successfully released two EPs in Denmark. On their long playing debut they now get support from top-class guests: Orhan Özgür Turan from the multi-award winning trio Hudna, multi-flautist Ozan Demir and double bass player Bjørk Delcroix Semey. The album features songs in Danish, Turkish and Kurdish, while AySay draw musical inspiration from Turkish-Canadian progressive rockers Minor Empire and Turkish-Dutch psychedelic crossover act Altin Gün. Both bands are heavily influenced by Turkish sounds.

According to the three band members, Su Akar is the result of a quarterlife crisis – with all that entails in terms of broken hearts, identity crises and world-weariness. But in every crisis there is an opportunity, and “every age has its own crises and beauties,” as AySay write on the album’s release, adding: “In accordance with the proverb, you can picture yourself as being the water that flows. And like the water, you have to surrender, let yourself be carried along and trust that you will get to where you are meant to be.” Su Akar seeks to touch upon the issues that go with this stage of life with integrity and honest confusion. And, above all, to inspire people not only to accept themselves exactly as they are, but also to fight for the right to being allowed to do this, too!

“These songs haul you from the misty northern plains to the warm, dry air of the mountains of Anatolia. They seek to unite what you know and what you don’t know.” Try not getting curious about the album from these words. Luna Ersahin’s story as a child of multiple cultures is reflected in AySay’s multilingual lyrics and messages. Vulnerable and powerful, but often also playful and optimistic, Su Akar thrives on such contradictions.

AySay have toured Denmark and Turkey and were nominated in their home country as “New Talent Of The Year”.