Rating:
Genre:
World
Release Date: 08/08/2006
As if
Tuvan throat singing -- that ancient polytonal, guttural vocal style that originated in Central Asia and has found an increasing curiosity among Westerners -- wasn't otherworldly enough already, here is one of the leading practitioners of the subgenre doing
"In A Gadda Da Vida." But not only does
Yat-Kha --
Albert Kuvezin,
Evgeniy Tkachev and
Scipio comprise the stripped-down lineup this time -- take on
heavy metal prototype
Iron Butterfly's classic hit, they also apply their particular alchemy to
Joy Division (
"Love Will Tear Us Apart"),
Bob Marley (
"Exodus"),
Kraftwerk (
"Man Machine"),
Hank Williams (
"Ramblin' Man") and other icons of
pop music. On paper the concept bleeds
novelty:
Kuvezin's voice is so coarse, deep and strangled as to make
Tom Waits' sound pretty (well, not quite, but almost), and throat singing, by its very nature, is a difficult listen, an acquired taste even among those who readily take to the less accessible strands of
world music. But it works, and it works well, because
Kuvezin is not your run-of-the-mill Tuvan throat singer and
Yat-Kha has never been bound by the form's traditions. Unlike the leading Tuvan group
Huun-Huur-Tu, which plays fairly close to the rules, and of which
Kuvezin was a founding member,
Yat-Kha has, since its inception in 1991, shown a tendency toward experimentation.
Kuvezin augments the traditional instrumentation with electric and acoustic guitars and synthesizers, and has always been as interested in mingling his ideas with Western ones as he is in drawing attention to the Tuvan style. When
Yat-Kha covers
Santana's
"Black Magic Woman" or
the Rolling Stones'
"Play with Fire" here,
Kuvezin and producers
Ben Mandelson and
Justin Adams ensure that the songs' structures remain familiar enough for those who've heard them on the radio a thousand times. But nothing -- repeat, nothing -- can prepare for the primal interpretations of
Led Zeppelin's
"When the Levee Breaks," Captain Beefheart's
"Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles" (
Beefheart may, in fact, be the closest approximation of
Kuvezin in American music) or
Motörhead's (really)
"Orgasmatron," recast as a twirling, swirling trance dance. And the frighteningly stark
a cappella reading of
Francis McPeake's
folk song
"Wild Mountain Thyme" sure doesn't sound like it did when
the Byrds or
Joan Baez did it. If you want to make a bet with a friend that you can play music unlike anything else in the world,
Re-Covers would be the place to begin.
~Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide
;)
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