Album Review
Tuvinian Throat Singers and Musicians:
Chöömej: Throat Singing From The Centre Of Asia.
Various
World Network
[Compay Segundo approaches Joseito Fernandez looking excited.]
Compay Segundo: Joseito! Listen to these men sing!
Joseito Fernandez: Very well, tell me when the instrument has finished.
Compay: No, no, this is the singer! He is making sygyt, he is pushing air through tight vocal cords to make this noise like a whistle - but - it is a whistle without the fat, sweetening shape of the lips you can hear when you whistle or when I whistle - it is more like - it is like - it is as if you tuned a bagpipe to a high pitch, like a sound you might hear far away on a mountain, made almost metallic by the thin air - a thin, firm drone. Now the drone has become low and constant. Now he makes his voice vibrate. He maintains a wobble steadily - now a groan -
Joseito: This, at least, is not him.
C: No, that noise just there is a jew's harp the chomus he is singing to. Years ago when Tuva was part of the U.S.S.R. their local dictator Toka is supposed to have crushed chomus with his own hands. He did not approve of the old-fashioned music. Read the booklet! It has a brief history.
[Joseito Fernandez takes the dark purple booklet and looks at the 'Cultural Rebirth' section.]
J: So this is where the triangular stamps came from.
C: From the geographical centre of Asia, certainly! Bordering Mongolia! Where else would one find triangular stamps? Never mind the postage; listen you to this most astonishing song -
[He forwards the CD to track 9]
C: This child is eleven! He sings a basso! The vocal manipulation is fascinating!
J: Do not refer to him as if he is a freak, Compay. Singing basso is probably extremely normal for eleven-year-olds where he comes from.
C: Like making triangular stamps? Psh, I am allowed to get excited. In the face of this wonderful noise I give myself permission. In any case, it is the variety here that interests me as much as anything else. It would have been too easy to put together an album of only the flashy parts of chöömej singing, such as the sygyt and the deep kargyraa, but here at track 8 we have also been given a Tuvinian caravan-driver's song, which is closer to what we usually think of as melodious chorus singing; on other tracks we have solo pieces and group pieces and pieces with the instument emphasised and also a piece from women so we get to hear what they sound like as well (not chöömej because it was supposed to ruin their pregnancies, so they believed) and a shamen ritual with drums and imitation animal noises. Some of the tracks are taken from the studio and some are field recordings and this shamen one was done on a stage, they say, and you can hear his voice change as he turns away from the microphone during his movement. This is diversity. It is not as you rudely say, a recording to show off freaks -
J: Ch! I! -
C: - in any case, only new phenomena are freakish and the Tuvinian chöömej has been known for ages - see, these songs were recorded in 1992 and 1993 when the style had already appeared at festivals abroad. The Tuva-Ensemble had been promoting it since 1968. The booklet even mentions a Russian researcher writing about it in 1948 - the Russian thought it was unnatural, but how can you trust anything said by a Russian? They are the people who messed up Communism.
J: When you have finished this callous abuse of me and many millions of Russian citizens, will you give your opinion of the album?
C: It's heavenly. Everyone should have it.
