Music by Samuel Holland. Primarily older stuff and soundtrack work. See also soundcloud.com/metal-tiger and soundcloud.com/soluneband

This page includes tracks by Ajda the Turkish Queen and her various projects: solo, and with Black Fortress of Opium and Turkish Queen.

"Faces of a Queen" is Ajda's newest record, released April 2023, and features members of a band formed in Boston back in spring of 2018.  The new album picks up where Ajda's previous band Black Fortress of Opium left off, offering something for many tastes - gothy mandolin, heavy guitars, soulful piano, and even a poppy song with harpsichord.

Other recent solo recordings include "Take This Ride" from indie producer Martin Bisi's studio commemorative BC35 LP and "Bobby's Car" released on BC35 Vol. II, both on the Bronson Recordings label (Italy).

Ajda's previous band Black Fortress of Opium formed in Boston area in 2006, making their name with two well-received albums and one 6 song EP, and sharing bills with acts like Serena Maneesh (4AD), Dame Darcy, Barbez (Tzadik), and Paul Wallfisch (Swans/Botanica/Firewater/Little Annie Anxiety).  The band's 2008 self-titled debut was the product of a collaboration with Martin Bisi, who produced and recorded the album in his Brooklyn studio, and had previously worked with acts including Sonic Youth, Swans, and The Dresden Dolls.  Warmly received by press and radio, the album garnered favorable reviews and airplay from the Boston Metro, All Music Guide, Terrascope, Northeast Performer, New York Music Daily, WFMU, etc.

Black Fortress of Opium released their sophomore album titled "Stratospherical," in 2012, on which Brian Viglione (The Dresden Dolls) played drums, and on which one-time bassist Dave Yanolis (ex-Nisi Period) appears. Black Fortress of Opium again heavily collaborated with fifth horseman Martin Bisi, who recorded basic tracks and mixed most cuts. Additional engineers Rafi Sofer at Q Division, former BFOO bassist Joel Simches (who also produced two cuts), and Danny Gold, as well additional instrumentalists, contributed to the effort.

The "Slow Burn" EP was released in Fall 2021, offering up 6 more tracks from the BFoO archives.

Ajda solo press:
“Bolstered by Wallfisch and Viglione, noir singer/guitarist Ajda the Turkish Queen’s toweringly gorgeous, Lynchian waltz Take This Ride is the strongest track here. “ ~ New York Music Daily

“'Take This Ride’ is a beautiful song that sounds like John Barry going head to head with Jarboe alongside Bee and Flower. Western tinged with rich harmonies, it’s a remarkably coherent, mesmerizingly lovely piece of music led by Ajda The Turkish Queen....such beauty is an oasis, a soft pool of fading moonlight…” ~ Sonic Abuse 

Black Fortress of Opium press:
“Both rootsy and ethereal (think Turkey by way of Texas)” – Andrew Wilson, Boston Band Crush

"Black Fortress of Opium are a brawling, dark monster of a band that seems like it should be playing shows with, say, Nicki Jaine or the Dresden Dolls rather than Gogol Bordello." – Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

"Treading a darker almost gothic path, probably through a Victorian cemetery at dusk, Black Fortress of Opium, are moody and magnificent on their self-titled album...a beautiful collection of brooding and melancholy songs" - Terrascope UK

"Intensity and dark regality… dominant feelings of haunting, other-worldliness and mystique…Black Fortress of Opium truly makes you believe that you just may be listening to something highly monumental." – Northeast Performer Magazine

"...like Siouxsie & the Banshees as covered by Live Skull" - Lucid Culture

"You needn't be a visitor to a drug den to be carried far, far away by this album's potent blend...a truly interesting new band…coming through loud and clear on this amazing debut, and if its exotic stylings were any stronger, they might induce hallucinations...or at least permanent rejection of conformity" – Playback STL

Followers of Iridium Productions