Replikas is doubtlessly one of the most acclaimed and popular alternative bands in Istanbul and Turkey. Their avant-rock, a combination of Anatolian music, post-punk, kraut rock, no wave and electronic music is a proven sound dialectics between local and global.
The band has been formed in 1993 by Gökçe Akçelik, Barkın Engin, Orçun Bastürk, Selçuk Artut and Burak Tamer. By now Replikas has published five albums. On their third album Avaz, released in 2005 under Doublemoon Records, they worked together with the producer Wharton Tiers who has worked with bands such as Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore and Dinosaur Jr. Their last album Zerre was recorded in a former prison on a deserted island, Gökçeada and released by Peyote Music in 2008.
Replikas has also been working on various movie soundtracks: for the film Maruf (2001) of the acclaimed film director Serdar Akar, and for Kutlug Ataman’s film Two Girls (2005). Replikas also participated in the music film Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005) by the film director Fatih Akın.
Cripple and Casino – Straight outta Zagreb, Croatia! We have here a sound that’s best described as ‘Eighties vs. Nineties vs. Now’. Cripple and Casino are the only band on Radio Is Down (an independently owned and operated record label, Northwestern nook, Olympia, Washington) active roster to proudly list Phil Collins, of Genesis fame, as an influence. As much as they love Phil, you won’t find a lick of his influence in these sounds. Instead you’ll be enveloped in a late-eighties / early-nineties DC – by way of Chicago – sound.
The band – Petra Dražić (voice), Marko Knez (drum set), Danijel Zec (bass guitar), Darko Kujundžić (treble guitar) – released in 2009 at the Radio Is Down label an album which raised attention in noise rock circles: “CAC have their vision of noise rock, which is not in fact filtered noise, nor is it classic rock. … All in all, a certain ‘negative’ atmosphere created properly and without banal/transparent solutions. … it stands that Petra’s voice is functional and suits the musical background completely. She sings and holds the melody when necessary, goes into the phrasing of one Leslie Rankine or early PJ Harvey when the song requires it and it all has a very convincing effect.” (Vladimir Horvat, Terapija)
DJ Chaspa’s music performance will include authorized live song performance that will extend into a DJ-set which will involve ethno-contemporary music from the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia – the region formally known as the Balkans – and Turkey. DJ Chaspa will let this chain of wooded mountains to spread and crossover to the region known as Orient … and then he will let the God to help us save our souls.
Asmir Šabić / DJ Chaspa (1979, Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a musician with a big list of different projects, musicians and bands he has worked and played with: Alternativa Nova, Bezbrižni Rupert, Ultra Red Orchestra, Vuneny, Brain Damage, Fedayi Pacha, Alexander Hacke, Bülent Kullukcu, Daqui Dub, Tuna Trio and Ghost´s, Majmoon and others.
Asmir studied theatre pedagogy at the University Džemal Bijedić in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and social pedagogy at the Jönkoping University, Sweden. He worked as a social worker at different NGO’s in BiH; he was also a program coordinator of the OKC Abrašević in Mostar (www.okcabrasevic.org). He was involved in many international and regional festivals and projects in the former Yugoslavia region, as Cross Radio Network; Short Film Festival Mostar; Vivisect Festival Mostar/Novi Sad; Exit Novi Sad; Mostar Intercultura Festival etc.
Asmir is currently based in Munich, Germany, creating music with Daqui Dub (Marseille, France), Majmoon (Munich, Germany), and is involved in projects of independent and subculture art trough events like Majmusical Monday, Balkan Lounge Glockenbachwerkstatt, Import Export Munich. Asmir’s sound art works have been presented at: Crossing Munich (sound installation, 2009), Not by Note (Steirsche Herbst international festival of modern art Graz, Austria, 2010), Cycling Wars (sound installation München Bayern Kaserne, 2011) and elsewhere.
