Tuvan ethno-techno, by Sarah Ankersmit – TUVAN SINGER and international diva Sainkho Namtchylak has over the last three decades won recognition for her unique fusion of central Asian throat singing techniques with modern musical forms, including avant-garde jazz and ethno-techno electronica.
Sainkho Namtchylak – Russia / Siberia
She says: I have been sharing my life with Vienna for ten years. It was not easy, it was good survival lesson after all. Good for both, or lets say, all sites of our ritual reality. How do I feel after ten years staying here?
A bit lost with midlife crises, a bit sad, a little bit sceptic, little bit lonely but generally I feel that I’m realized artistry. I’m respected as an artist. I did 30 albums at different labels with many different musicians, famous and not so. I was teaching and giving voice lessons. I was meeting a lot of people and I was learning from them too. My stile of singing and performing my voice became interated from very old traditions into our days sound. It is still a lot to learn, to know and to see. Whatever happened in this life, inner life has other dimensions – it is wider, it is wiser, just a wispered scream.
Music for me is a special language of feelings and it is the key to the inner life, to our soul. Because music has different forms like everything in our nature, I’d like to try all forms and stiles. Improvisation alone or with other musicians give me that chance to study and experiment with different frames of music to fulfill my frame. To understand my limits, to touch the border where the sound is becoming a music thought. I hope the program presented in this project will open new imaginary horizons in people, Sainkho Namtchylak. (Read more in Porgy & Bess).
Saikho Namtchylak is originally from Tuva, a country in Central Asian between Siberia and Mongolia. She began studying music in the mid 1970s in Kyzyll, Tuva’s capital, and later continued in Moscow. Throughout her career she has worked with many musicians and artists in Asia, Russia, Europe, and North America.
Tuvan throat singing, sometimes transcribed as « khoomei, » is a fixture of world music, as well as an important cultural possession for Tuva. Traditionally « khoomei » singers were men, often pastors, and the singing was a manifestation of the close connection between Tuvan people and their land. Tuvan throat singers use their mouth and throat to produce two or three sounds at one time. Namtchylak makes the most of her voice by matching deep, throaty sounds with higher pitches. Her incredible vocal range, matched with the eclectic music of her many collaborators create a simultaneously attractive and eerie sound. (Read on POTS).
articles about her in some other languages (to see more in any language, put her name in any search tool):
in german: Plattenwechsel, SAINKHO, naked spirit, amiata records – SAINKHO NAMTCHYLAK, `57 in Tuva geboren, legt mit NAKED SPIRIT ein fast mystisch klingendes Werk vor. Mühelos überschreitet sie konventionelle Grenzen und läßt dabei in ihrer Vokalkunst sowohl traditionelle wie moderne, teils freejazzartige Elemente, ineinander fließen. Es entstehen unglaublich bizarre Klangbilder. Mittels moderner Technik spielt sie mit ihrer Stimme, singt SAINKHO mit sich selbst im Duett (TESTAMENT), oder zerlegt den Klang ihrer Stimme in einzelne Laute. In der Instrumentierung, meist minimalistischer Prägung, gleicht NAKED SPIRIT einem Windhauch der durch die Saiten einer Harfe schlüpft. So wandert SAIKHO NAMTCHYLAK durch die Welt unserer Ahnen, mal als Avantgardvokalistin, mal als asiatische Tempelsängerin, hinweg über die nun bestehenden Kontinente um den Ursprung aller Sangeskunst erneut aufglimmen zu lassen. (om)
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Sainkho Namtchylak wirkt auf dem Cover gezeichnet vom Kampf gegen ein veraltetes Wertesystem, das der `57 geborenen Künstlerin den Weg immer wieder erschwert hat. Aber oft sind es gerade die Wiederstände an denen man wächst. Auch wenn Sainkho aus Tuva stammt, so lassen sich ihre Arbeiten nicht in die Folkecke stellen. Im Gegenteil, sie scheint fast alle Grenzen zu überschreiten. (Read more on Weltklang);
in italian: Musica;
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TOM;
in spanish: El Colombiano;
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in an asian language (chineese?): click here;
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in japaneese: click here;
in an eastern language: Triger … ;
links:
Jazzreview, with some splendid photos of Saikho Namtchylak.