Volkan İncüvez

Sit back, close your eyes and let the sounds of the Turkish ney and the guitars of Volkan Incuvez envelop you. The solo performance of the multi-instrumentalist from Turkey, coming to Israel for the first time, is a precious opportunity to dive into the magical world of a rare musician, one of the new-generation leaders of the ethnic music scene in Istanbul. It’s the voice resonating like a distant prayer, the sounds that have something of the sand, the wind and the spaces of Anatolia, and the structure – rhythmic and melodic – the guitar dictates like a heartbeat galloping in a live loop, becoming an eternal moment, an ever-unfolding experience.

Volkan Incuvez is a musician-philosopher on an ongoing research journey. His music, layers upon layers of sounds collected from different times and spaces, connects you to breathing. It’s addictive transcendental music, structured yet open, leaving much room for improvisation. A marine crossroads, Turkey connects the Aegean Sea with the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, and the Mediterranean. Incuvez’s music, too, in many ways, is a bridge and a nexus point creating something new, harmonious and whole.

At the crossroads between Afro groove and jazz, modular harmonies and polyphony, ethnic music and contemporary music, susurrate the sounds of this unique Turkish musician who never ceases to surprise. If in his debut album, Kun (2019), Volkan envelopes traditional instruments with modern textures, in his next album, Mahal, he goes back in time to the roots of classical Turkish music, from the time of composer and Sultan Selim III to the days of composer and princess Gevheri Sultan. His follow-up album, Volkan Incuvez Quartet, with his own compositions for a quartet he leads, ranges across the realms of ethno-jazz, and Yeni Dunya (“new world”), which came out in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic and was dedicated to medical workers, is a one-take improvisational trip across the experimental space.