Album Review
Yol Bolsin
Sevara Nazarkhan
Real World
[Compay Segundo and Joseito Fernandez are finishing lunch together.]
Compay Segundo: I am in a quandry. This is what I think: I think Peter Gabriel must be a good man. His Real World label goes to so much trouble to bring musicians from all over the world to record in their studios, don't they? He brings Pakistanis, he brings people from Tibet, and now this woman Sevara Nazarkhan, who is a popular singer in Uzebkistan. How unusual it is, to have music brought to us from Uzbekistan! Yet - [he makes a scooping gesture near his chest] - I am disquieted, and why? Because so much of the music on these recordings sounds like Peter Gabriel! It has the, the mist, the seething fog of electronic noise behind the singer, like 'Sledgehammer,' or 'Digging in the Dirt.'
Joseito Fernandez: Digging - what?
Compay: [sings] "Digging in the dirt ... pom pom pom ... stay with me-e I need support," you know, that one he did many years ago. It does his voice good to have that other music behind it because it is not a very strong voice so the approach works well, it gives his songs strength. But here is this Sevara Nazarkhan who has a -
Joseito: - lovely -
C: - a lovely wailing voice that has the high pitch of India or South East Asia in it, but with a certain European influence which keeps it from becoming too glass-like. Uzbekistan lies in an area that is not quite Europe and not quite the other, so this combination makes sense. I think it also has the qawwali influence. It gives her a high pitch but at the same time it is very expressive.
J: Ay, you mean he puts his Peter Gabriel style of backing behind her but she doesn't need it.
C: That is right. This producer Hector Zazou he's got from France surrounds her with a steady beat. Listen. A-tom-tom-tom. A-tom-tom-tom. Her voice is trying to fly away and it's tied down by this punctuation. They are putting symmetry on what is trying not to be symmetrical. Do you remember the Armenian women on volume two of The Music of Armenia? Every so often the voice of a single woman would take off and establish a long note going up and down in a very elegant, very beautiful way. This is what I can hear Severa Nazarkhan trying to do. In 'Yol Bolsin' she lets loose a note and the way they react, it is as if they are trying to punish her. They put electronic noises with it and they take it and echo it and twin the echo with her voice so there are two Sevara Nazarkhans singing the same note at once. They take this one sound and put too much drama onto it. They cool it down. They turn her into only one part of a mist, moving, moving with a regular beat. You would think they were jealous of her and didn't want her to have too much attention. Toir Kuziyev who accompanies her by playing the doutor is treated the same way.
J: She has a moment together with the instrument at the start of 'Galdir'. They sound fragile.
C: Mm, the whole recording could have had this delicacy. Why are people so afraid of the purest noises?
J: [ he shrugs] It's what they enjoy, Compay. People have different tastes. They've made the music more complicated, which is the way they like it. It's more relaxing like this. You don't have one person grabbing your attention. You can lean into the whole sound as if it is a cushion.
C: Tch! If only it had been different.
