Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek : Yarın Yoksa
Ever since that little band from Houston with the big name came off tour with Bonobo in 2013, global fusion—as far as the pop charts are concerned—has experienced a serious glow-up. Khruangbin, the world-trotting power trio who plays breakbeats—vintage Wu-Tang or Gregory Isaacs basslines too—under whatever happens to be inspiring the band on that day. Thai rock, Iranian pop, and dub mixed with soul and psychedelia? Sure.
That formula tracks. Critically and, more importantly, financially for the band. You can’t find a summer music festival in 2025 around the world that doesn’t have Khruangbin or a band in that same vein entertaining both deep crates beat heads alongside Vegas Daisy Carnival types and dudes who overly use the term “bro” because the shrooms just kicked in a little too hard. All of these festival groupings, collectively, keep on twirling in the sun.
Go check the London-based, pan-continental, female-instrumental four-piece Los Bitchos, too, who took grounded-up ‘70s Anatolian rock and mixed it up with instrumental retro-futuristic blends of Peruvian chicha, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych and surf guitars. And then toured the shit out of it (saw ’em live, they’re dope) successfully to the people. Both methods, brazenly triumphant, have caught serious looks of “Oh, okay, you can do that, cool” from many once-called World Music artists looking to get their new glimmer in this remodel.
So, according to legend, about ten years ago, while participating in a community theater project, Derya Yıldırım met French musicians Graham Mushnik (keyboards) and Antonin Voyant (guitar/bass) from Catapulte Records and formed the band Grup Şimşek, with Helen Wells, a drummer from Cape Town, South Africa, joining in 2021. Born in Hamburg, Germany, to Turkish parents, Yıldırım grew up influenced by her family’s Anatolian background and the myriad of cultures in the city and learned to play the bağlama—a seven-stringed Turkish lute.
Yıldırım, who sings in her parents’ native Anatolian, contorts a vocal instrument of vulnerability, that anybody not familiar with the language can sense nuance, tenderness and ingenuity on the Leon Michels-produced Yarın Yoksa, their first release on Big Crown Records.
While it’s been reported in the press that both words ‘Yıldırım’ and ‘Şimşek’ mean lightning, what also needs to be documented is that the production sheet for Michels (El Michels Affair) over the past couple of years has included Black Thought, Norah Jones, and, more importantly, Grammy nominations.
Yarın Yoksa, with its many references flowing through ’70s Turkish funk one moment and then acid rock leanings happening with synths flying in through the outdoor, it is not so crazy of a concept grabbing up Michels. Not taking a thing away from the band Grup Şimşek—they have chops for days. But the added layer of retro expertise of Michels’ (Wu-Tang to Lee Fields, Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley production sheet) handling of the soul-psychedelia, analog representation, and the ability to harness a golden hour shimmer on the opening half-time banger “Çiçek Açıyor.” The string-laden balladry of “Yakamoz” and the funk-psyche roll of “Direne Direne,” which translates to We Will Resist and proceeds to roll out the grooviest protest song to date, go ahead and add Derya Yıldırım and Grup Şimşek to your summertime festival concert sheet. This “outernational” rendering has legs.
Label: Big Crown
Year: 2025
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