This is reprinted from Green Man Review.
The Ensemble Khan Bogd is a Mongolian group of young men and women, directed by Gankhuyag Natsag. They sing a variety of styles, male and female vocals usually separate, and play traditional instruments. Chief among the instruments is the morin khuur, a horse-head violin with two strings, long neck and boxlike body that plays a range that’s equivalent to a violin and a cello. Others include a transverse flute, a type of oboe, a two-stringed lute, a Chinese-style snakeskin fiddle, a type of hammer dulcimer and a large zither.
On Vol. I, they perform two main types of songs: a long song, usually with a solo female vocalist and simple accompaniment, generally the morin khuur; and a short song, which features a full ensemble of instruments and sometimes mixed-sex vocals, more rhythmic and often with improvised vocals. The long songs are peaceful and stately, and feature impressive exhibitions of breath control, with highly melismatic vocals that swoop and soar through the pentatonic scale. The short songs occasionally feature alternating male-female vocals, and the male vocals on the short songs are usually in a throat-singing style.
The album is nicely sequenced, with a long song generally followed by two or three short ones, although the first 15 of the 21 tracks are sung by women. Two tracks, “Taliin Tavan Tolgoi” and “Jiijuu khantaaz,” are by solo unaccompanied female voice. The former song is a besreg song or lament about five mountain peaks; the latter a playful number in which a woman sings about her boyfriend’s embroidered jacket. A particularly stirring song is “Dörvön tsagiin tal” or the four seasons in the steppe, with the full ensemble playing and male and female vocals alternating, and singing together in the final verse. The final track is a two-song suite, the second one called “horseman,” with a galloping rhythm on the zither and high overtone singing called höömij.
Judging by the cover photo, Vol. II is played by a smaller ensemble. It is devoted as well to two types of songs, the magtaal or praise song, and demonstrations of various styles of höömij throat singing. The praise songs include one dedicated to the man known in the West as Genghis Khan, here called Chingiss Khaan. Some of these songs are long, up to nine minutes as on track 3, a song in praise for the tribe of the Oird — this one is a whole suite of mini-songs in different tempos and many styles of throat singing.
The rhythms and melodies on this disc sound as though they’re influenced by other forms from around the world, but I’m pretty sure they’re not. Nevertheless, one of the sections of the Oird praise song sounds Scandinavian, another dedicated to a mountain named Jargalant sounds like a one-chord blues with a near-rock beat, and yet another, “Setgemj” or four mountains, sounds for all the world like Mongolian doo-wop! Another song from western Mongolia has both male and female voices and is in three-four time. The final track is 11 minutes long in many sections, including spoken prayers, lots of shamanic rattles and drums, the full instrumental ensemble and many voices, in praise of their homeland, spiritual and temporal rulers and artists of the past, and Buddhism.
As with all recordings from Face Music, the liner notes are quite good, including translations of the songs and an explanation of the instruments, vocal styles and the country’s history and geography. Quite impressive. And again, considering the youth of the musicians, musically impressive as well.
(Face Music, 2005)
(Face Music, 2005)
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