Off The Beaten Track: a brief history of the enigmatic sound of Middle Eastern psychedelia
When you think about the many countries that make up the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula, you probably don’t immediately think about their musical output. Thanks largely to political upheaval and conflict, the cultural landscape of the region has taken something of a backseat in recent decades, which is a crying shame given the groundbreaking quality of the region in terms of its artistic expression and, of course, its music. For centuries, the music of the Middle East has had a distinctive and compelling quality to it. So, when rock and roll psychedelia made its way to the region in the 1960s and 1970s, it proved a natural fit.
Across the Middle East, Turkey proved to be a particular hotspot for pioneering psychedelic rock bands in the 1960s and 1970s. Groups like Moğollar helped to redefine expectations around what constitutes Middle Eastern music, establishing the vibrant new world of Anatolian psychedelia. In many ways, this scene never really went away. From its origins in the wake of the original psych-rock revolution, Anatolian psychedelic rock is still going strong to this day, lauded around the world for producing some of the finest psych-rock bands to ever grace the airwaves.
Outside of Turkey, however, the lineage of psychedelic rock was much more tumultuous. In Iran, for instance, the country developed an incredibly exciting music scene during the 1970s, with many groups leaning heavily towards the world of psychedelia. Even pop superstars like Googoosh flirted with the revolutionary sounds of psych rock every now and again. However, the incredible cultural boom of 1970s Iran would not last very long. In 1979, a revolution saw the Islamic Republic of Iran rise to power, placing strict controls over artists and musicians, essentially destroying the cultural landscape of the nation.
Even revolutionary governments and Islamic fundamentalism could keep the far-out sounds of psychedelic rock down. Within the Arab world, in countries like Egypt and Morocco, psych rock found a home. As opposed to many Western psychedelic bands – the likes of Cream, The Byrds of Jimi Hendrix – Arabian psychedelic groups would often utilise the influences of traditional folk music within their sound, creating an entirely new genre of music in the process.
If you listen to Middle Eastern or Arabian psychedelic music for any amount of time, it will soon become apparent just how different it is from the Westernised idea of what the genre should sound like. The scene has an ethereal quality, expanding upon the mind-bending style with the added influence of traditional instruments and arrangements. It might have been the Western world that popularised the psychedelic movement, but it certainly did not keep up with the groundbreaking sounds arising from the Middle East.
Even today, there is still a wealth of new groups following in the footsteps of those early Middle Eastern psych artists, creating ethereal rock and roll for the new generation. Admittedly, those original records from the 1960s and 1970s still sound incredibly fresh; they have something of a timeless quality to them. However, many modern artists exploring the world of Middle Eastern psychedelia are doing so from outside the region itself. Altin Gün, for instance, are a Turkish psych band operating out of Amsterdam, while Tinariwen are a Tuareg group that borrow a great deal from the traditional sounds of Algeria.
Ultimately, limiting any musical genre to a specific region or country is a fairly reductive task. Music spreads across the world, with each region having their own unique take on things, and Middle Eastern psychedelic rock is a prime example of this. Across the region, young musicians were experimenting with the combination of their own folk roots and the vibrant new sounds of Western rock and roll. In turn, many modern bands today, from across the globe, heard those records and used the influences of early Middle Eastern psychedelia to forge their own sound. It is a history of inspiration, pastiche and adaptation, and whichever way you look at it, that’s a beautiful thing.