The Guest List: Carlita takes a nostalgic trip to psychedelic Turkey

One of the hottest artists on the global DJ circuit today, Turkish-Italian DJ and multi-instrumentalist Carlita has been turning heads and raising eye-brows at just about every stage she’s been headlining.

No different to her music, she’s a vibrant and enthusiastic person that bridges the worlds of quality dance music, high fashion and art — her multisensory fashion-week event Senza Fine has brought together collaborations with brands like Nodaleto, Raisa Vanessa, Les Benjamins, and Louis Vuitton, and she DJ’d their event with Yayoi Kusama. As a globe-trotting DJ, Carlita has played some of the most prized stages in the world, including Tesla's GigaFactory opening, CircoLoco, Rakastella, Space Miami, Burning Man, Cinecitta with Cercle, and most recently Coachella.

Carlita recently released her EP 'Life' with Andhim this month on Life and Death. Have a listen here.

Eager to explore her roots in music, we reached out to her to share her favourite and most inspirational Turkish psychedelic tunes, and Carlita fired back with 10 incredibly eclectic songs that really help depict her life growing up. Dive in and get lost!

Baris Manco is a legend in Turkey and I grew up listening to his music, I was always inspired by his catchy melodies and thought-provoking lyrics, i never got to see him play live but everyone said he was an amazing performer as well

This is a very emotional song which always resonated with me because I moved away from Turkey and the lyrics are very emotional and timeless.

Sevmek Istiyorum means I want to love you, and this has always been a very powerful song and something i listened to a lot growing up in Turkey.

This track has got such an infectious rhythm and is super catchy, people would always sing along to it and seeing this was always influential because it made me realise the importance of having great rhythm in my performances.

This track is so special for a number of reasons, it’s a great fusion of completely different musical styles. You have a Turkish psychedelic rock band mixed with a Nigerian afro-beat legend. What’s not to love about that!.

This is a very influential song about social and political commentary addressing issues such as freedom of speech and injustice. I always found it so inspiring to hear these lyrics and how powerful a song can be.

Fikret is considered one of the pioneers of Turkish rock music and I always loved Rock music growing up, it really influenced me very heavily and led me to start learning how to play the guitar.

This track also blends together very traditional Turkish folk music with rock and psychedelic influence and I just love the way it sounds.

Altin Gun are a modern Turkish band which are kind of reviving the traditional Turkish folk sound but with their own modern twist and I love how they are doing this and the sound they are creating, it’s helping younger generations discover the sound I grew up listening to and that’s something I love to see.