National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Avaz ("  noise    ")

Spending a lot of their early career in dingy backstreet venues of Istanbul, Replikas - "great Beyoglu hopes" (the Wire, UK) – have never taken much notice of the mainstream making so much noise around them or tried to make themselves easy to classify.  In a country where stand-out musical uniqueness is not exactly a feature of the pop and band scene, they are just that – unique.

Taking inspiration from Avant- and Kraut-Rock, and adding Turkish elements - not in a contrived way, but just as living in Turkey you naturally add spice to food, it's what you do – their new album Avaz has a new bounce and, compared with their previous two post-punk/noise albums, a return-to-roots feel.  Perhaps this is best seen in the raw reworking of Ömür Sayac?, a song which appears on their previous album [Dadaruhi].

Producer Wharton Tiers (Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, Dinosaur JR and White Zombie) has taken their material born in those crowded cellar bars and helped shape and guide their back-to-basics direction: guitars sound  like guitars, electronics gain personality, and vocals are perfectly placed in a design where carefully constructed sound allows for wide open musical spaces.

Cult, alternative, underground, Avaz  presentes a myriad of new sounds which will be enjoyed not only by fans, but by a wider audience ready to seek out the cutting-edge creative voices of Istanbul.

— CalabashMusic.com