TURKISH DELIGHT
THERE’S a rumbling deep beneath Vondelpark – more precisely, emanating from the Vondelbunker, a Cold War nuclear shelter under a bridge in one of Amsterdam’s biggest parks. These days, it’s a volunteer-led space for cultural events and houses practice rooms where bands, including Alt1n Gün, rehearse.
“It’s a proper bunker!” laughs Merve Dasdemir, the band’s singer and keyboardist.
“We have a very nice space there,” says bassist and founder Jasper Verhulst. “Though there are no windows and there’s not a lot of air in there.”
At the Vondelbunker, Alt1n Gün can rehearse whenever they want. But there’s not been much call for that lately. There’s Covid, of course. But before that, the band’s busy gig schedule meant little practice was necessary. “We used to play a lot,” says Dasdemir, “so we’d usually be gone.”
Much of the world, it seems, has been calling out for Alt›n Gün since they released their debut album, 2018’s On. Their kaleidoscopic mix of psychedelic rock, disco and Turkish traditional music has found appreciation with both younger hipsters and the Turkish diaspora across the globe. That’s good going for a group whose repertoire – “Halkali Seker”, for instance, from debut On – is probably most often heard at weddings in Turkey.
Indeed, they’ve been asked to act as a wedding band many times, according to Dasdemir: “We’re trying to stay out of weddings, because if you go in there you can’t get out!”
Some are more wary of weddings than others. Erdinç Ecevit, co-vocalist, keyboardist and saz player, of Turkish heritage but born in the Netherlands,
