Interview with musician Özgür Aydın

We had a pleasant interview with Turkish musician Özgür Aydın, who is known for his blues-dominated works, about his art life.

–It is the sixth album of his musical career. It’s a brave thing to release an album during this period; we congratulate you. In such a period when the condition of “being visible” is constantly sought, you do not use social media, you continue with albums instead of singles. What is the secret of this posture?

Music is more than a commercial product. Nowadays I think a single is good in the showcase but an album is always like books in the library. Social media is mostly ones who exist rear and front of the showcase like consumers and traders. Therefore I keep on moving and rocking readily without it.

-You have released your sixth album, “Harvest.” Which topics did you focus on in this album, and can you tell us the story of “Harvest’s” recording process?

I used the harvest as a metaphor. Humankind is consuming and destroying nature instead of sharing and enhancing it. We can not ignore it anymore. I wanted to mention basic needs like air, water, food, energy, land, and sum of all is the ethical harvest. To the best of it.

–Can you also discuss your other albums? How did your musical journey shape up, and are there any similarities or differences between the albums?

I always wanted to compose themes with many concepts and ideas. It was ever so. Concepts and ideas are what I’m angry about, feeling sad, about the joy of life, and hope to future shortly all the things I experienced as a human.

The first album “Mystic Blues” was me in the mirror. The rendezvous of the west and the east. The second album “12th Street” is about where I was born and raised in Iskenderun where tragically it was an earthquake wreck now due to the 6th of February Earthquake in Kahramanmaras. In the Third album “Sad Robot” humans and robots are morphing into each other as a question of the millennial era. The fourth album “Picnic on the Moon” represents the thoughts about the future of our planet and the fifth album “Road to the Blue” is the journey that starts with impulses and ends in the blue.

–Your music is predominantly blues-based. Do you remember how you were introduced to this genre of music?

Blues is always a big inspiration and feeling for me. It is not just a music genre. It is the deep feeling and expression of the state of mind. It always was.

–Who has influenced your music?

For sure there are many musicians. Some of those, Mike Oldfield, Kitaro, Andrew Latimer (Camel), Mark Knopfler, Pink Floyd, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  

–As a physicist and a musician, how do you think your music and academic work interact with each other? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Actually, Physics is the imagery of the universe. It queries the “reason”, “why” and “how”. 

These queries are essential for composing things and themes sophisticatedly. 

–Your music has more listeners overseas. In your opinion, what are the differences between your listeners in our country and those abroad?

I don’t know that but I think music guides humans who go toward their inner world through emotional concentration. These emotional concentrations and music occupy very important places for the one who can feel and become aware of their existence by self-consciousness.

 Music, which dissolves self-alienation and transforms loneliness into a great unity, has made great progress in the wisdom of humanity by creating marvelous miracles throughout the ages. Therefore music must be independent of any geography.

With love.