|
|
 |
World Beat: Feature
|
| Click Here to go back. |
J&R Music World: Snap Magazine, World Beat: Feature >>
By Keith Harris
Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha
Re-Covers
Like any audience, the "world music" crowd has its dilettantes, its fad-jumpers, the easily distracted sorts who skip to a style or region when it grows fashionable, then emigrate to the next when that trend falls from favor. This year, we love the Cubans; next year its the Gypsies. And for a short period back in the early '90s, nobody could compare with the Tuvans.
Albert Kuvezin was there, as a founding member of Huun-Huur-Tu, the Mongolian ensemble that brought Tuvan folk singing to our Western CD-changers. But this group was trapped on the folklore cuircut, typecast as representatives of an all but lost traditional music. It was an awkward place for an adventurous, rock 'n' roll loving cosmopolitan to find himself to say the least.
With Yat-Kha, however, Kuvezin has taken a deep plunge into the other music of his childhood, pummeling "When the Levee Breaks" amd "Black Magic Woman" with his steppe-bred gutturals. But these covers aren't all classic rock--there's a toedip into Kraftwerk and Hank Williams as well, and then there's "Love Will Tear Us Apart."
Nouvelle Vague, incidentally, also had a crack at that Joy Division classic. And in fact, just like that group's bossa nova treatments of alt-rock faves, Yat-Kha interpretations would seem to have all the makings of a novelty act. But in both cases, the performers transcend the gimmick--while suggesting that rock hits may be to global music what Broadway tunes were to jazz.
Yat-Kha call themselves a roots rock band, and why not? Its just that their roots are in Central Asia rather than the Mississippi Delta. Next, Kuvezin should form a death metal band. Cookie monster vocals would never sound the same.
WORLD VILLAGE 10/01/06
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
