The four-piece Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek consists of musicians Graham Mushnik, Antonin Voyant, Helen Wells and Derya Yıldırım. Merging folk music with original compositions, they have created a distinct sound centering the bağlama, a traditional instrument from Anatolia.
Ilo Toerkell: Yarın Yoksa is the first record for which you collaborated with a producer. You worked with Leon Michaels of Big Crown Records in New York City. What was that experience like?
Derya Yıldırım: As a band, we mostly come together to play live and go on tour because we don’t live in the same country. Whenever we do get to be together, that time is always precious. We love creating music and writing songs collectively. Having a producer and sound engineer take care of the sound and vision for us was quite cool. After making music DIY-style for almost ten years, we were ready for that step.
Helen Wells: When we went into the studio, our songs did not really have a structure. Leon Michaels helped us stitch them together into something cohesive. We adore his music and his production style, which has this vintage vibe without being purist. There is still something experimental and a bit rough about his work, which fits very well with what we wanted to record.
The album title translates to “If There Is No Tomorrow”. Why did you choose this title?
Photo by Philomena Wolflingseder
H: It came about through wordplay. We were searching for the right words and ended up pulling some from the lyrics of the last song.
D: Yes, and it expressed what we wanted to say perfectly. The content and lyrics of each song feel relevant to our time and to me personally. If there is no tomorrow, it makes me reflect on what truly matters in this life. Like, would you love, would you think about justice, would you fight until the end? We want to make our fans think about these things.
A Piece of History
On the record, you covered three Anatolian folk songs, something Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek are known for. How do you approach recording songs based on traditional compositions?
H: To me, working with folk songs is almost like a case study. To understand, respect and represent the material, you have to understand its history and meaning. Folk music is a piece of culture and history, and I want to do that justice.
D: For me, there are three rules: don’t change the melody, don’t change the lyrics and please have good taste. I want to preserve the essence of the song. At the same time, it is essential to bring something new and interesting to it. If we are not adding something unique to us, then why record it again? The song already exists and is beautiful in its own right.
The song “Yakamoz” is named after the Turkish word for the reflection of the moon on water. What is the song about, and how is its theme related to Yakamoz?
D: The song describes the displacement of a human and expresses the weight of carrying the pain of the soil, as we say in Turkish. It captures the experience of being uprooted from where you belong. In the lyrics, I sing about being in motion and looking for a new home, while carrying that pain on your shoulders. The song was written in collaboration with the artist Tuğçe Kep, who is from Istanbul but lives in Berlin now, and Duygu Ağal, my cousin.
The song “Direne, Direne” is about resistance. What does the song mean to you?
D: “Direne, Direne” is about various injustices – kind of a lament about the state of the world and society we live in. And the answer to a lament is always to resist. The title translates to “with resistance and again and again”, so it is a call to keep fighting for justice.
Is music a tool for resistance for you?
H: I think it is definitely a tool for resilience. Even when you have nothing, you still have music.
D: For me, resistance is at the core of folk music. The bağlama is a sacred instrument for the Alevi people, who are still being persecuted and have historically faced persecution. So, resistance is embedded in the culture and instrument itself. The bağlama has shaped so much of Anatolian music, folk music in particular. It is part of the oral tradition, poets and singers who carried their culture and stories from village to village.
Folk songs are especially powerful because everyone knows them. They hold cultural relevance and are ways of dealing with collective experiences like grief. True resistance comes from this sense of collectivity. There is even a Turkish saying that describes the bağlama as our weapon.
Best Friend and Companion
Derya, you started playing the bağlama as a child, and back then, there was little appreciation of it in the German music industry. Do you think that has changed in recent years?
D: Yes, I think how it is perceived here in Germany has definitely changed. Now, there is more mainstream appreciation for the instrument. In 2014, it was “instrument of the year”, you can study it in Berlin and there is a Bağlama Symposium in Mannheim. Twenty years ago, playing this kind of music – our families’ music, our cultural heritage – was considered so uncool. I remember people feeling ashamed when their parents played Anatolian music around their German friends. People considered it weird, and no one wanted to be weird. But the bağlama has been part of Germany since the 1960s, when “guest workers” and people seeking asylum brought their cultures with them. Playing, celebrating and embodying that music in Germany is a way of reclaiming it, especially for an entire generation that was told it does not belong.
You have said that we shouldn’t think about folk songs through a lens of nostalgia but rather as mirrors of society. How does that idea shape your music?
D: I am alive, playing the bağlama and singing the songs from my own perspective. That alone already makes these songs a mirror of present-day society. In a way, I think my experience represents the experiences of a whole generation of people in Germany. It is not just about me playing this instrument; it is about what it means, where it comes from, and how people connect to it. I am just trying to find my own language to understand my generation.
The bağlama is my best friend and companion. It has always been this way. I feel like this instrument understands me – it tells my story and carries my voice.
Photo by Philomena Wolflingseder
I saw, you recently judged a youth competition of kids playing the bağlama. How was that for you, engaging with the new generation?
D: It was so cool. I was glad they asked me because usually, it is always old men doing these things. Seeing a woman teach bağlama and judge the competition made an impact, especially on the little ones who were there. It is still a male-dominated world, so it is very important for kids to see different representations. It allows them to see a future where they can do that as well.
H: Yes, I think representation makes every bit of difference. When I started playing the drums, there were barely any female drummers. Meg White was my only inspiration.
You describe your music as “outernational”. What does that term mean to you?
D: It means that our music exists outside of national identity. In one way or another, we all inhabit a space where we don’t necessarily fully belong to the country we were born in. And we can go beyond that. Every day, you go beyond – on the internet, for example. Our music exists in this outernational space.
H: The band comes from many different places, but we never connected to the term “international”. “Outernational” is a statement we are making and not something that we want to create. It is not about utopia for us but rather a reality in which we already exist.
Yarın Yoksa is out now via Big Crown Records. You can stay up to date with Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek via Instagram or their website.