Heavy Metal & Global Premodernity II online conference, hosted by Miami University, 15-17 March 2024
Full conference program:
sites.miamioh.edu/heavy-metal...
"'Puratu, Tigris, Esir: Anatolian Culture and Spirituality in the Music of Pentagram (Mezarkabul)"
-Ceren Kuşdemir Özbilek, Yaşar Üniversitesi
Abstract:
Pentagram (aka Mezarkabul) is a Turkish heavy metal band that was formed in 1984 and it is probably the most famous Turkish metal band abroad. They have eight studio albums so far and what makes the band unique in Turkish metal scene is the fact that they’ve changed their musical style with each album. Their first two albums, Pentagram (1990) and Trail Blazer (1992) overwhelmingly have speed and thrash metal sounds whereas their last three albums, MMXII (2012), Akustik (2017), and Makina Elektrika (2022), moved more towards a rather softer version of heavy metal. However, it is their third, fourth and fifth albums that define the band’s peculiar sound and secured its place in Turkish metal music. Anatolia (1997), Unspoken (2001), and Bir (2002) are albums that incorporate Turkish folk and traditional music sounds along with classic heavy metal tunes. For example, they extensively use bağlama, a famous Turkish string instrument, and the lyrics in these three albums are heavily influenced by Islamic mysticism and Sufism. The band’s journey from speed and thrash metal to heavy metal with Turkish undertones clearly marks a point in the band’s discography in which questioning this shift is inevitable. I argue that this shift designates a response to the allegations of satanism towards the band and a way to actualize the will to produce music that is both “Western” and “Eastern” by keeping the heavy metal element and adding premodern Anatolian cultural components to appeal to the Turkish listeners. In this way, it is possible to read this shift to premodern Turkish culture as the band’s way to gauge and deal with the reception of metal music in Turkey. This study will include analyses of sample songs that contain Anatolian cultural and spiritual elements as well as how the band has changed the reception of metal music in Turkey.
Biography:
Ceren Kuşdemir Özbilek is an instructor of English and a curriculum specialist at Yaşar University, Turkey. She received her BA in English Language and Literature at Ege University where she is currently a PhD candidate. She is working on a dissertation on the politics of language and literary form in James Joyce’s novels. She has presented mainly about literature, cinema, and music in many national and international conferences and her book reviews appeared in James Joyce Quarterly. She is a metalhead, a gamer, and an unapologetic crazy cat lady. Her academic interests include Marxist literary criticism, politics of popular culture, metal music studies, gaming studies, science fiction, and weird fiction. This will be her second music related conference presentation after her work titled “Time to open your eyes to this genocide: Gojira, Metal Music, Environmental Violence and Activism” in Representations of Violence in Literature, Culture, and Arts Conference in 2021.