National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Turkish Classical Music is a highly stylized hybrid of forms from across the Ottoman empire, which once stretched from eastern Europe through Arabia. Against the barrage of cheap and popular forms like arabesque and Turkish pop, the genre has bound itself tight in formalized rules and restrictions.

Burhan Ocal's New Dream transports the listener within this ivory tower. It is not about stealing from Turkish Classical Music, but bringing it new wealth, of breaking the bindings of its strict rules and allowing the music to breathe again with new life. The rich textures and sumptuous string melodies again become the height of luxury, as they were in the Ottoman Court when it ruled half the world. Resembling nothing so much as a rich Turkish dessert drizzled in sugar syrup at the end of a fine meal with friends, or silk sheets and a four-poster bed with a lover, New Dream is a rare sensual treat.

— CalabashMusic.com