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Okna Tsahan Zam

Title: Shaman Voices - A Journey in the Steppe

Label: BUDA

Cat No:3016822
Format:CD

Our price £ 13.99
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Discovery Records
specialist music - mail order

This is a superlative set, a great example of Mongolian-style Di-phonic chant (throat-singing) set in a collection of traditional songs, delivered with power and sensitivity by Okna Tsahan Zam. - hauntingly melodic.

The album steers clear of the sensationalistic element of throat singing, preferring to set it in the medium of tradition and heritage. The songs are interspersed with local ambient sounds; horses, wolves, wind...

Coupled with the CD is a DVD of footage taken in his native Steppe, showing the people's proximity to equestrian culture, and extracts of Okna in a sparse Parisian recording studio, clearly demonstrating the extraordinary technique of di-phonic singing.

The Kalmyks, a Mongol people with a long tradition of horsemanship and nomadic sheep herding, were forcefully removed from their lands between the Caspian and Black seas by Stalin. Okna Tsahan Zam, descendant of the Baatoude clan, was born as they returned to their home territory from Siberia in 1957. Repatriation also brought a return to traditional values and the 'code of the Steppe' : musical storytelling flourished as part of a centuries old mix of shamanistic and Buddhist culture.

Okna became a master of hoomii, the overtone chanting technique whose sounds connect the singer to the space around him and the souls of his ancestors. On this album of 'Shaman voices' East meets West..... horse fiddle, cymbalum and snakeskin lute combine with the percussion of Steve Shehan, bass and string arrangements; all subtly underpinned by modern music technology.

Producer Claude Samard has avoided the kind of electro gimmickry that can so easily mara collaboration of this kind and overseen a harmonious marriage between a powerful, mysterious traditional music and contemporary studio skills. The result is a breathtaking musical landscape which echoes the windswept steppe over which the Kalmyks still ride their horses.... dominated by the astonishing tones of Okna Tsahan Zam's singing. His voice, earthy yet other worldly, beguiles and embraces the listener.

Track Listing for Shaman Voices - A Journey in the Steppe
01. Intro
02. EDJIN DUUN - Firecamp in the steppe
03. KHMEI (solo) - Chanz musician in the distance
04. AKHNER DUNER - Wolves in the windy slope
05. MOUKHNA TSAHAN - Djinguenuur ambience, Deportation train
06. SIBIR - In the village
07. EDJIN DUUN - Horses (acoustic)
08. STRING DUET
09. SAMARINE - Under the stars
10. KNOMEI (3 voices)
11. MOUKHNA TSAHAN - Thunder in the steppe (Featuring BAVAUSH)
12. DJANGAR - After the storm
13. AR BUMBIN ORN - Meditation
14. KHOMEI (choir)
15. Outro

Bonus Tracks Urban Remixes

16. DAVOUR GHALZEN
17. DAVOUR GHALZEN (Radio RMX by D. DALCAN)

Discovery catalogue available for
Okna Tsahan Zam

Shaman Voices - A Journey in the Steppe