Music Discovery Digest #7 | Hidden Meridians Edition
5 human-curated world music discoveries from Cyprus to Afghanistan, Turkey to Iraq. Music that crosses borders algorithms don’t even know exist.
Five tracks, five coordinates. Cyprus, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. Each one a point on a meridian that doesn’t appear on any official map, but that music has been tracing for centuries. Algorithms won’t surface these. They don’t know what to do with a Cypriot band singing in both Greek and Turkish, or an Iraqi refugee whose ancestors came from Kenya in the 9th century. That’s exactly why we’re here.
Buzz’ Ayaz — Buzzi Ayazi (Cyprus, 2024)
Nicosia is the last divided capital in the world. A wall runs through the city, splitting it between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities for over 50 years. Most artists from the island choose a side. Buzz’ Ayaz chose both.
Led by Antonis Antoniou, founder of Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke, the band brings together musicians from both sides of the divide. Their self-titled debut album, released on Glitterbeat Records in August 2024, is a fuzzed-out urban soundscape of Anatolian psychedelia, 70s psych organ, dubby electronics, and a growling bass clarinet played by British musician Will Scott. “Buzzi Ayazi” is the opening track and the thesis statement: the word ayaz (a cold, clear wind) is shared between the Greek and Turkish communities of the island. That’s not a coincidence. It’s the whole point.
The album won Best Album at the Transglobal World Music Chart for the 2024-2025 season, beating out hundreds of releases from across the globe. For a debut record from a band most of the world had never heard of, that’s remarkable. But spend five minutes with this music and it makes complete sense. There’s a rawness and urgency here that polished fusion albums never capture. This sounds like a city that has been holding its breath for decades, finally exhaling.
Hüseyin Bitmez — Her Daim (Turkey, 2007)
Not every discovery has to be brand new. Sometimes a track has been sitting in a corner of the internet for 17 years, waiting for the right moment to find you. “Her Daim” is one of those tracks.
Hüseyin Bitmez is one of Turkey’s finest kanun virtuosos, an instrument that sits at the heart of Turkish classical music. The kanun is a flat zither with 78 strings, played with small plectra worn on the fingertips. In the wrong hands it can sound decorative, background music for a restaurant. In Bitmez’s hands it becomes something else entirely. Meditative, precise, deeply emotional.
“Her Daim” appeared on the compilation Istanbul Calling Vol. 2 in 2007 on Elec-Trip Records, a label dedicated to bridging traditional Turkish music and contemporary sensibilities. The track is built on repetition and patience. Nothing is rushed. Nothing is forced. It rewards the kind of listening that streaming algorithms are actively working against: slow, full attention, no skipping. This is the kind of track that makes you realize what you’ve been missing by letting a playlist decide what comes next.
