After handicrafts and TV melodramas a new and unlikely item has been added to Turkey’s list of cultural exports: psychedelic rock.

Legendary Turkish rock acts from the 1960s and 1970s — such as Mogollar, Baris Manco, Cem Karaca and 3 Hurel — now have a following in North America and Western Europe. Glossy reissues of Turkish rock LPs can be found in record stores from Chicago to Stockholm. American rappers Mos Def and Dr Dre have used samples of blistering guitar solos from Turkish protest-rocker Selda Bagcan in their songs. Bagcan herself, now 70 years old, plays packed festivals in Spain and the Netherlands with an international group of youngsters as her backup band. American actor Elijah Wood of "The Lord of the Rings" and musician Annie Clark have both come out publicly as fans of ‘60s Turkish rock.

This unexpected revival is not only happening abroad. Young people in Turkey have also been rediscovering these sonic experiments from the mid-20th century.

Anadolu Rock, as this psychedelic/progressive rock music from Turkey is called, is named after the Anatolian land-mass on which most of modern-day Turkey is situated. The genre boldly combined folk music traditions from the countryside with international rock music, with particular influence from bands like The Animals, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Traffic, Cream and Jethro Tull.