Flört is a long lasting group known as different names like SOS, Bekarlar, Kim Bunlar and Flört since the beginning of 1990s. They were one of the first rock groups that performed in Bilsak, which is the first rock bar of Istanbul. In 1998, they were discovered by Prestij Müzik, known as a major company of the 1990s and their image was designed like the “Love Me Do” period of the Beatles and the group’s name was transformed to “Kim Bunlar” (Who Are They). Their first album, which was an Anatolian Rock parody, was released in 1998. The second album was their “Sergeant Pepper”, where they behaved like how they were and it was released in 1999. The tracks in the album varied from punk to psychedelic, from surf to love ballads. In the year 2000, they departed from Prestij Müzik, leaving the “Kim Bunlar” name as a copyrighted brand of the company. Hakan Çağlar (Timsah) (drums), Ozan Kotra (bass and vocals) and Ata Akdağ (keyboards) replaced their guitarist Barış Bölükbaşı with Çağatay Kehribar and obtained the new name Flört (Flirt) leaving their other group names behind.
The first album (named as Flört) was similar to the Roxy Music style with its love ballads blended with experiments of funk, rock, pop jazz even hip-hop. Kehribar’s surf guitar with multiple analogue inspired effects, Akdağ’s synthesizer touches which frequently refer to analogue age synth sounds, Kotra’s resonant bass sounds and Timsah’s swinging drums that easily adapt the needs of those eclectic genres determine the group’s sound. Polyphonic vocals also reflect the Mazhar Fuat Özkan vocal music tradition in Turkey.
Their second album called “Cemiyette Pişiyoruz” (We’re Getting Mature Among Society) was an after crisis album of the group as Ata Akdağ and Timsah were not present due to various reasons. Although a new group set up was on the cover, members other than Kehribar and Kotra only appeared in a few songs, therefore drums and keyboards were generally played by studio musicians. Some electronica experiments, surf songs and quite native ballads and sufi rock were the stigmata of the album. The change of the group dynamics created a long lasting cooperation of Kotra and Kehribar.
Soon after the release of this album in 2003, Kotra was on the way to fulfill his obligatory military service. After his return, the group played live in some outstanding concert clubs during 2005. On the other hand, the sales of the Flört albums were dramatically low in comparison with their best seller period under the wings of a major company like Prestij. Due to the crisis in 2001, there was absolutely a bankrupted Prestij and their old name was also in the control TMSF (Fund for Saving Accounts and Security). Therefore, Flört decided to stop its both live and studio facilities.
In the quite years, Kotra and Kehribar began a new career in post syncing business and made productions for TV companies. Among this new era, they founded a studio for the dubbing business and eventually by the efforts of Çağatay Kehribar, the studio was also equipped with analogue recording devices. Analogue recording was familiar to the group especially during the recording of their albums under the name of Kim Bunlar. Kehribar became familiar with analogue equipment while he was working for Studio Bayar.
In the year 2009, Timsah joined back the band after experimenting with Etnik Sentetik and they recorded a great analogue comeback album named Demli (Well Steeped). The brass set, analogue synthesizers supported the band and the sound was extremely groovy and funky rock type. There were also ballads and The Beatles type happy song and a deep psychedelic mood; therefore Flört’s comeback was as eclectic as usual; but this time with a big groove. Demli was released in 2010 and soon after the group gave several outstanding concerts with an extended group including brass and synthesizers (Barış Büyük). The response was great as its audience sought for their old and badly distributed recordings and longed for this comeback.
After these extended band concerts, Flört began a new series of concerts all along Turkey as the original trio. These concerts provided a stable audience and compensated the general recession of the music market in Turkey for the group’s sake. The next album of the trio was Anadolu Beat (Anatolian Beat) which was released in 2012 both in CD and vinyl form (with an AAA remark). The group was supported by both brass and strings and nice analogue Moogy parts were included in the performance of the tracks. Most of the songs were the ones the group couldn’t use because the Prestij Müzik adventure of the 1990s’: the sound was really retro and highly inspired from the mod years of the British Music blended with some Anatolian riffs.
Celebrating their power trio years, Flört began to record their hard to find songs live in their studio and broadcasted some of them on the internet. Pasaj Müzik, which is a division of Ada Müzik, offered the group to make a studio album which is recorded live without overdubs. “Hücum Kayıtlar” (One Take Live Recordings) as a retrospective album with a few new songs added was released in 2014 by Pasaj Music.
The album was a catalyzer for the ones who recently got acquainted with Flört’s music and made a bridge between two generations. On the preparations of the album, the old pal Ata Akdağ also began to interact with his old group. This interaction continued in the movie “Tehlikeyle Flört” (Flirting with Danger) which was the “A Hard Day’s Night” of the group.
In 2015, Ata Akdağ was again the member of the group and the fab 4 was rebuilt after 14 years. Akdağ’s contribution brought his compositions like “Balon”(Baloon-Rock Chanson on group relations),” Onun Adı Hasan” (He is named as Hasan) and “Yalnızlık Mevsimi” (Season of Loneliness) to the group’s live scene and the new–old setup first released an online single of the old composition “Onun Adı Hasan” (He is named as Hasan-A Song , Akdağ wrote for his father who died as a result of traffic accident). Akdağ’s analogue keyboards and Kehribar’s fuzzy guitar were more emphasized in comparison to the original arrangement where bağlama was also included in.
In May 2016, the group’s new album as a fab 4 was released by Pasaj Müzik. The group’s producer was Fuat Güner, who was the guru of the group since they were founded as Bekarlar. Fuat Güner, singer, guitarist and composer began his musical career as a member of Kaygısızlar in 1964, soon Mazhar Alanson joined the group and they performed a nice psychedelic rock in the second half of sixties. They also accompanied Barış Manço in his psychedelic years. Fuat Güner, Mazhar Alanson and Özkan Uğur formed the group İpucu in 1976 along with Ayhan Sicimoğlu and Galip Boransu. They formed groups Mazhar Fuat, İpucu and finally they became Mazhar Fuat Özkan (MFÖ) in 1980 and became the best vocal group in Turkey. Their sound varied from rock to euro dance, new wave to modern sufi music by the time. Fuat Güner also made his solo album and group projects like DEF that was formed to perform The Beatles in a Turkish way along with Bowie’s and Iggy Pop’s ex -arranger Erdal Kızılçay.
The new album named “Aşk Böyleymiş Meğer” (Surprised that Love is Something Like That), is the beginning of a new era for the group. One of the changes is Akdağ’s reunion and his stamp on much of the compositions which are technically more planned in comparison with Kotra’s solo compositions which are more emotional and more burst out. The second important aspect is Fuat Güner’s role as a producer. In this content, we should say that the guru of the group makes the raw and the wild side of the group flatten with his view. As we witness in the MFÖ albums, the experimental approach diminishes and even in the stage performances the group uses backing tracks; also in Güner’s solos, we should admit that there is no more a psychedelic rock musician and Güner’s existence refines the sound of the album but especially in context of the bass sound I long for the groove of Demli.
On the other hand, “Aşk Böyleymiş Meğer” is still a Flört album and has references both Akdağ years and comeback albums.
The first track “Aşk Böyleymiş Meğer” is a Saturday Night Fever or a Boogie Nights mood which take the disco sound experiments of rock bands like Queen, Bee Gees and David Byron of Uriah Heep. On the other hand, group inserts a well-blended oriental approach with finger cymbals and solo vocal parts of Kotra. Kehribar’s funky guitar changes to fuzzy mode accompanied with the analogue synth solo of Akdağ. Fuzzy guitar gives references to Anatolian Pop movement and vocals progressively become Anatolian Pop. The song gives all those tastes but makes a feeling that it should continue longer with solos etc.
The second track named “Of!” is more a Ata Akdağ song although the track is registered as “Kotra –Akdağ” the same formula of “Lennon-McCartney”. “Anatolian Pop according to MFÖ” feeling provided with polyphonic vocals and with Akdağ type sensitiveness determines the traffic of the song. The short but impressive organ solo of Akdağ gives a great mood to the song.
“Kelebek” (Butterfly) is a composition of Çağatay Kehribar who has also made great improvement both as a solo vocalist and composer in addition to his creative guitar techniques. The song has a nice progressive arrangement reminding of Alpay’s Müjdat Akgün era mixed with aspects of “New Song” (Nueva canción) movement of Latin America.
“Donuma Kadar Islandım” (Fully Soaked) is a typical Ozan Kotra song type with its powerful lyrics. The arrangement has Mediterranean influences and a polyrhythmic traffic.
“Ağlamak Yok” (No Cry) is an Ata Akdağ ballad with duduk accompany and the flute parts remind us of the Mellotrone flutes of The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields”. The song also has inspiration of Akdağ’s former group Yaya’s concept album named “Bay A’nın Hikayesi” (The Story of Mr. A).
“Cafer’in Evinde” (In Cafer’s House) is a collective composition of the group. In the arrangement, Flört displays how they were influenced by Erkin Koray in means of “Allaturca Underground”. The guitar sound of Kehribar gives reference to Turkish type of guitar replicating electric bağlama like Cengiz Coşkuner and Fikret Şani put into practice. The vocals reflect a retro behavior of beat groups of the 1960s.
“Sen de Hoşgeldin” (You also Welcome) is another composition of Kehribar. Fuat Güner joins the group with his bluesy electric guitar and it has also nice vocal parts blended with a perfect strings arrangement.
“Özür Dilerim” (Excuse Me) starts with great piano parts and a string arrangement with the full support of the group. The song reminds us of Supertramp’s orchestral rock ballads. It is one of the grooviest tracks of the album. Ozan Kotra displays a great vocal performance during the song.
“Arkadaşlarımın Zoruyla” (By the Enforcement of My Friends) is a composition of Timsah in the same rock chanson like style as “Suzan Yüzünden” (Because of Suzan) which was another composition of Timsah in the album “Anadolu Beat”.
“Sakin” is a short track which mainly displays Kotra’s specialization as a troubadour. The short form of the song seems to be highly inspired of the short tracks in “White Album” of The Beatles.
In summary, I would lie to say that Flört as a group of experiments still makes good constructed songs and plays them with arrangements that are above the perception level of average music listeners. On the other hand, Flört has a risk to be as mature as MFÖ in context of making music that is acceptable but not involving in experimenting new sounds and grooves. Therefore, Flört has to push the lines of its audience for a more experimental style of music like The Beatles and the Beach Boys did in their psychedelic era albums. By the aid of their capability and experience in the recording process, they will not need a new “George Martin” to shock the audience.