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Global Rhythm, Feature >>
There's an old and filthy joke to which the punchline is the simple statement "Because he can." But what could possibly inspire Tuvan basso profundo throat singer Albert KuvezinL a human synthesizer who can sing melody while simultaneously supplying a separate, droning overtone, to cover Santana's "Black Magic Woman" or Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"? Same answer.
On Kuvezin and Yat-Kha's Re-Covers (World Village), the group applies age-old folkways to a variety of Western pop tones with stunning results. Traditional and cutting-edge sounds mimic and egg one another on until wildly disparate elements are utterly transformed via non-fusion. Produced by British multi-instrumentalist/agent provocateur Ben Mandelson, the album certainly will provoke shock and a few giggles on first listen, but the lasting impression is of freewheeling creativity. Yat-Kha reinvents golden oldies like Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks," the Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire," Kraftwerk's ''Man-Machine,'' Hank Williams' "Ramblin' Man" and Motbrhead's "Orgasmatron" (plus selected Celtic, Russian, French and Tuvan numbers), reinventing themselves in the process.
The story of Yat-Kha (named for a type of zither played by the bandleader) began in Tuva, a starkly beautiful but impoverished Central Asian republic just north of Outer Mongolia. The area's economy was once based upon hunting/gathering and herding, but as ancient ways of life were broken down by industrialization, rural Tuvans, who can be described as Siberia's aboriginal people, began flocking to cities in search of work. Given the privations to which they were subjected, it is not surprising that alcoholism and other societal ills soon took fierce hold. Since the downfall of the Soviet Union, things have gotten even worse.
Albert Kuvezin was born under Communism and his earliest musical attempts met with limited success, to say the least. After joining a children's choir devoted to sanitized, government-approved Russian "folk songs," he was strongly advised to never sing again. Kuvesin continued with music at university, though, studying with Gennadiy Tumat and Aldyn-ool Sevek, mastering local instruments and a specifically Tuvan style of kargiraa kfoomai (overtone, or throat-singing) known as kanzat. He was a founding member of the folk band Huun-Huur-Tu, with whom he collaborated with musicians like Frank Zappa, Ry Cooder, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and the Kronos Quartet. But once he discovered Western pop, Kuvezin's focus shifted radically. Eager to incorporate driving rock rhythms into his birthright, he recruited a revolving circle of equally iconoclastic collaborators and started Yat-Kha in 1991.
Though his long hair, jeans, electric guitar, and penchant for high-spirited intercuteral experimentation had made him a target for lard-brained Soviet bureaucrats and often driven him underground at home, he was attracting considerable attention from the international community. Sponsorship from avant-garde rocker Brian Eno, Lu Edmonds from 3 Mustaphas 3 and Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains, who signed the band to his own Wicklow imprint, all helped Yat-Kha gain a world-wide following, After becoming a fixture at various European festivals and winning a BBC3 Radio Award, the French RFI "Decouvertes Est" prize and the German Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik, the group embarked upon its first-ever US tour in 2001, supplying an eerie, sometimes quirky but always spaciously beautiful, semi-improvised soundtrack to a recently restored print of Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1928 silent propaganda masterpiece, Potomok Chingis Khana (Storm Over Asia).
"The present situation is very different than during the Soviet era, but I can't say that everything is better now," Kuveizin writes, emailing straight from the tundra. "There were some good things in the Soviet way of organizing and supporting cultural events, but only so long as the music was good propaganda and not against Communist ideology. In the old days, Russians didn't like or accept aboriginal music from Siberia and the North, thinking that we were primitive and backward, When I began my solo career and did some supporting acts, the audience laughed and shouted 'Go back to your tundra, yellow ass!' and threw coins and cans at me. But now Russians want to listen to all different styles, world, traditional, etc."
How have things arranged specifically for Yat-Kna arid other formerly marginalized acts, since the fall of the USSR?
"One good thing is that there are many clubs and good sound/lighting equipment in the new Russia. These days, we have many fans across Siberia and some in Russia, but in Tuva, most people still don't understand or even like our music, It sounds too strange and hard to them and they prefer simple, melodic songs. But they are proud of our success," And what is it like, singing khoomai, which was once largely unknown outside of Asia, on the world stage? "It's always different, depending upon the even humidity and temperature affect it. In Tuva, where many know it and can sing it themselves, khoomai sounds like a part of nature. But in a big city, I always try to adapt it to my own feeling on a sensual level, to get an aura of the venue, sense the polarity of its energy, It turns into some magic thing, slowing down the speed of modern life and helping people to relax from their daily stress."
Living in a remote area, Kuveizin (an ardent fan of other musicians' work) doesn't get to see as many live acts as he'd like, but he keeps up with his favorites' recorded output. When asked to describe what he is listening to, he reels off remarkably varied roster. "Ali Farka Toure, Susheela Raman, Asian Dub Foundation, Hendingarna, Ozomatli, Natacha Atlas, Diana Krall, Oktai and Azharbass (they're from Tuva, by the way!). I still like some old metalists and rockers like Motorhead and Iron Maiden, Jeff Beck and Carlos Sanlana. I also like alternative, underground and Asian psychedelic bands."
Asked about upcoming projects, he replies, "Well, I will be open (to you and your readers only!) about one of my secrets: Right now, I am composing music for a movie about Ghengis Khan, which is being filmed this year in Siberia, Then, I want to release a compilation of Siberian ethno-rock on Yat-Kha Recordings. I am trying try to build and equip a recording studio in Kyzyl, my hometown - this needs support!" ' 10/01/06
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