Wiki
-
Release Date
27 July 2008
-
Length
10 tracks
The songs on the album are adaptations of traditional songs from the grasslands, sung in Mongolian, many using hoomei, a throat-singing technique that has been handed down over hundreds of years. At the heart of the music are two traditional instruments – the morin khuur – the horse-hair fiddle and the tobshuur – a strummed two-stringed lute.
Some of the arrangements sound very simply traditional and others are more complex. ‘Five Heroes’, a song of vigilantes stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, includes jangly electric guitar, conjuring up cowboy movies – creating a connection between east and west. ‘Wuji’ is predominantly throatsinging, with the strong repetitive sound of the horsehair fiddle pushing the song forward. ‘Lullaby’ (Borulai) is a gorgeous mix of vocal harmonies – the familiar feel of a gentle lullaby with a strong atmosphere of the grasslands.
The penultimate track, ‘Drinking Song’, recorded during a drunken evening and spliced together in the studio, hits the spot. ‘Let our song never end, let our fortunes never decline, a cup for ever in our hands, a song for ever in our throats.’
CRITICAL RESPONSE
“distills everything powerful about Mongolian folk music and makes something new from the ingredients…transcendently powerful music that anyone from anywhere can understand.” (Pitchfork)
“so entrancing or just downright enthralling that I just can’t imagine why the tradition ever fell out of fashion… charming, raucous, brilliantly jubilant and a breath of fresh Mongolian grassland.” (World Music Central)
“Hanggai are a particularly exciting prospect” (Froots)
"their melodic, often mournful songs at times echo the sturdy charm of Celtic balladry." (Guardian)
"Their debut album is a delight…'Flowers' is country and eastern, while 'Haar Hu' could be the grassland's 'Scarborough Fair'. While Beijing busts a vulgar gut to Westernise, Hanggai update tradition with elegance." (Observer)
"From the first bar of the first track, the rhythm of horse hooves pervades their music, either created by strumming on the lute or by simple percussion, while the horse-head fiddle spreads its warmth and the throat singers do their gravelly stuff. Some tracks have an urban atmosphere, but many exude the amazing calm that travellers on horseback experience, as they traverse the seemingly limitless steppes of Central Asia. " (Independent)
THE BAND
Hanggai is made up of young musicians from Beijing and from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia and their interpretations of traditional songs from the grasslands have attracted quite a following over the last few years. The word ‘hanggai’ is ancient Mongolian, describing an idealised grassland landscape of mountains, trees, rivers and blue skies.
Hanggai’s leader, Ilchi, was fronting a punk band until he experienced a conversion after hearing traditional overtone singing. He travelled to his father’s homeland of Inner Mongolia and started to learn the technique – rediscovering the music and the repertoire of songs that had faded but not disappeared during China’s turbulent past. There he met Hugejiltu and Bagen, both music students, who joined the group. Hugejiltu plays lead fiddle and Bagen sings deep bass using a technique of overtone singing, producing a note one octave below the note he is singing.
Album descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
