Today, singer, songwriter and composer Melike Şahin releases the new album AKKOR via Gülbaba Records in partnership with Day Dreamer. An empowering assertion of survival that propels traditional Anatolian pop and folk influences into the future, AKKOR rises like a phoenix from the flames to reintroduce the Turkish superstar diva to an international audience. Listen to focus track “Sağ Salim” (Deep Waters) and purchase AKKOR HERE.

Today’s focus track and the album opener, “Sağ Salim” (Deep Waters), sets the tone with Melike’s striking vocals at the forefront, delivering powerful lyrics in an emotional confrontation: Come on, have the guts / Hit me again, if you dare. The song explores what Melike describes as a “romantic relationship showdown” — a recurring theme in her work. “I like to talk about women who have been able to get out of the dregs of toxic relationships and get back into their lives,” she shares. “It’s more accurate to say that this theme does not leave my pen… I like to dig into the most wounded places when I write.”

Watch the video for “Sağ Salim” (Deep Waters) here.

Recorded live in London with producer Martin Terefe (London Brew, Buika, Jamie Cullum), AKKOR features a selection of the most talented and forward-thinking musicians on the scene, including guitarists Dave Okumu and violinist Raven Bush, as well as Sterling Campbell (David Bowie) on drums, Glen Scott (Eric Bibb) and Nikolaj Torp Larsen on keyboards. Bringing an international feel to her heart-rending performances, the record represents the most focused and complete expression of Şahin’s sound to date.

Having performed around the world with Turkish psych legends BaBa ZuLa, Şahin released her debut album Merhem in 2021, gathering billions of streams and building a reputation for unforgettable live performances. While Merhem was about healing, AKKOR is about survival: personally coming to terms with difficult relationships, childhood trauma, and the pressures of newfound fame, as well as socially continuing to champion the rights of the oppressed in the face of state and media violence.

Powerful and vulnerable, AKKOR demonstrates an orchestral grandeur drawn from traditional Anatolian pop and folk music, injected with the urgency of contemporary production. Bound together by Şahin’s inimitable voice, AKKOR skips between Middle Eastern melancholy and classic disco hedonism, for an album that is as stylistically open, pluralistic, and affirmative as the messages the music carries.

Şahin has made a career of facing down criticism and censorship of her progressive creativity: an expression of Şahin’s personal growth, AKKOR is an affirmation of her growing status as the voice of a generation, and whose lyrics have been adopted as a call to rights for the women’s movement in Turkey. Although she does not describe herself as an activist, Şahin’s poignant lyrics have come to define the women’s movement in Turkey, with the words, “I deserve each and every inch of this smile,” adorning protest banners on International Women’s Day and celebratory posters at Pride.

“This is the moment that I told myself, Yes, I am an artist,” Şahin says. “I am bearing all of the other things because of this, because I am affecting people’s lives, and I am giving some power.” AKKOR — which translates as candescent — finds Melike rising again and burning brighter than ever before.

AKKOR is Şahin’s rebirth album — a statement of self-empowerment, through which she hopes to continue to raise up the voices of those around her. “You are seeing a woman who falls down, but who rises again and flies,” she explains. “Maybe she doesn’t win, maybe she doesn’t lose, but she’s a survivor,” Şahin concludes. “She is a phoenix.”

This autumn, Melike Şahin will perform at the Stockholm Global Sounds Festival on November 23rd (Tickets here), followed by her London live debut at EarTH in Hackney during the London Jazz Festival on November 24th (Tickets/Info here). More dates are planned for 2025 — stay tuned for further updates.

Read Melike Şahin’s full bio here.