The Away Days: Dreamed at Dawn

The Istanbul-based band The Away Days released their debut album Dreamed At Dawn earlier this year. However I distanced my ears from their sound due to silly happiness surrounding any attempt from Turkish music scene when a band or a musician receives some attention from “the West.” A kind of Euro-centrism, a kind of orientalist gaze, and of course a kind of histeria of the West which is epidemic not only in Turkey but also in whole East. So although I continued to follow their post and events, I refused to listen to their debut album. But I was wrong.

They absolutely had caught a nice tune surrounding almost entire album and each song. With touchy guitar tones, the music of Dreamed at Dawn takes you away from reality for a brief moment and allowing the mind to wander – filling it with color and possibility. But not so far and beyond: As the title of the album reflects the album is “like a zipped recap of all our lives so far in Istanbul. You can find all the happiness and sorrow in it." the slower tracks such as "White Whale", "Making Ends Meet", "Dream of How", "Now You Don't Know" and especially "Monks" capture the habitat of recent Turkey, Istanbul with political unrest and blur atmosphere with some real intent. Almost each track has a unique sound (while vocals are just a bit repetitive, but anyhow, not an obstacle to enter the atmosphere of the track). My favorite is the last track: Layers which I would like to edit into a beat waving the arabesque sound of our away days, here in Turkey.

The Away Days | Dreamed at Dawn | Pasaj Müzik 2017 | ***