Grup Ses - The Ransom Note Mixtape
Istanbul-based digger and producer Grup Ses’s mix for Ransom Note is a trip through the cassette underworld of 1980s Turkey, when drum machines and synthesisers went from novelty to the centre of the arrangement.
It opens with a sampled tape skit asking whether you’re stressed or tired, then prescribes the cassette as the cure, to be played anywhere from the hamam to a minibus. From there it moves through electronic pop, arabesque hybrids and Anatolian-tinged studio pieces, with a Turkish cover of Mory Kanté’s “Yé ké yé ké” along the way, before closing on two slow jams.
The backdrop is the 1980 military coup. In its wake, the studio, rather than the band, became where Turkish pop was made, and the new machines spread fast. The records here are full of Junos, DX7s and Yamaha RX11s, but also stranger local tools like the Bojidar RB Alaturka Ritm-Box, a rhythm box built around traditional Turkish rhythms. Some producers used the gear to chase the international pop sound of the moment. Others pushed it towards arabesque or Anatolian pop, and plenty of these records never travelled beyond a small cassette or vinyl run.
Many of them are gathered on DALGA – A Selection of 80s Pop Oddities from Turkey, compiled by Grup Ses for Zel Zele, the Istanbul and London-based label and NTS Radio show. Neriman and Füsun Önal show the glossy, global-pop side, while Mehmet Pekün and Zor Beyler fold electronics into arabesque. Tele Tempo, a studio project arranged by Özkan Turgay with drums by Koral Sarıtaş, takes the Anatolian route. Vedat Biçkin’s “Darbuka Bongo Kavgası” splits darbuka and bongos across the stereo field over a drum machine groove, and Grup Ses calls it the most inventive production on the record. Six of the tracks have never left their original cassettes until now. The mix sets a few of them beside lesser-known finds from the same years, so the compilation sits in a wider scene.
The title is Turkish for “wave”, and the sleeve uses Antonio Cosentino’s painting “69 Volkswagen” (2003), which comes from the same everyday Istanbul imagery the compilation celebrates. For Grup Ses it also goes back to childhood. His earliest musical memory is MFÖ’s “Peki Peki Anladık”, which was constantly on at home when he was three or four. He has been digging and releasing records since 2007, with six albums of his own and archival work for Ironhand Records, Sucata Tapes and Zel Zele, including the label’s Café Türk and Bahtiyar Taş reissues.
DALGA is vinyl-only and comes out on October 30, 2026 via Zel Zele Records. “Anca Gidersin” is already out as a digital single, and Bandcamp pre-orders include an instant download of Zor Beyler’s “Bir Mumdur”.
Fulll interview here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/grup-ses-the-ransom-note-mixtape/
