Suküt

Billed as one of Turkey's first instrumental guitarists, Serdar Oztop's first CD Sukut is a stunning example of the compositional and playing ability of this artist. Featuring ten instrumentals, the album offers blazing, cleanly and confidently played axework while containing enough surprises and twists to stand up to repeated listenings. Oztop was trained as an engineer, so the production and recording is top notch. Graceful ballads such as "Kalabaligin Ortasinda" alternate with ethnically enriched pieces ("Yeni Gun"), and fierce, all-out-pedal-to-the-floor rockers ("Azraille Dans"). Oztop has mastered the fine art of balancing memorable, melodic and harmonized guitar lines with impressively fluid, smoking speed solos, and that alone is enough to highly recommend Sukut to guitar fans.