The magic of Tuva

[airiefairie]

I knew I had almost missed this. When Kol returned from his (N-th) trip to Russia/Kazakhstan, he kept talking about that throat music of Central Asia that he is so fascinated about lately. I did not pay much attention the first time but when I heard him listen to this stuff the other day, I was instantly enchanted. So I asked for details. What is this unearthly music?

It turned out this is a band called Yat-Kha. They are from the Tuva republic in the Russian federation. Just on the Mongolian border. By the way Tuva has a unique history as it used to be shortly an independent republic during the Russian civil war. The Tuvans are an Altaic ethnic group and their music tradition is related to that of the other Mongolic peoples. Their specific throat singing creates a mystic, ethereal, almost extra-terrestrial atmosphere. I wish I could understand the words too...

Without much ado, here is the song which caught me into their magic:

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Comments

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

Very beautiful. The Inuit also have a form of throat singing, but it's performed by two female singers singing face-to-face.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Why face to face?

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

It's a game. First one to falter loses.

[majortom-thecat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this! I used to have some Yat-Kha on my computer but lost it in a tragic hard drive erasing accident.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

You can go to Youtube, find some of their songs and then comfortably convert them into mp3 through this website: http://www.video2mp3.net/

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Throat-singing is very beautiful indeed. :-).

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Yes, epic. And how about the masters of Tuvan throat singing.

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