Huun-Huur-Tu - Biography
Huun-Huur-Tu was the first Tuvan folk group to tour the world, presenting the oddly compelling music of their homeland to an amazed worldwide audience.
Tuvan vocal music is based on xöömei (throat-singing) of three kinds. Kargyraa is a method of producing two or more notes at the same time, as well as rich vibrating overtones and rumbling bass notes. Sygyt is higher pitched with overtones that sound to western ears like whistling. Khoomei is a mid-range style that produces two notes at the same time. The vocals are said by Tuvans to mimic the sounds of the wind whistling over the plains, the rumbling of horses hoofs, water bubbling over stream beds and other natural sounds. Kaigal-ool Khovalyg learned xöömei while working as a shepard and was recruited by the Tuvan Stare Ensemble when he was 21. He left the Ensemble in 1993 to start the folk quartet Kungurtuk which morphed into Huun-Huur-Tu. Sayan Bapa went to music school in Kislovodsk, Russia, son of a Tuvan father and Russian mother. He returned to Tuva with his brother Alexander to study traditional music. They started a folk rock band that played traditional Tuvan music on electric guitars, met Khovalyg and joined Huun-Huur-Tu. Albert Kuvezin was the fourth founding member. Their first album Sixty Horses in My Herd (1993 Shanachie) caused a sensation in world music circles with its strange harmonies, instrumental prowess (on instruments most had never heard before), and energetic playing. The songs were all traditional, but played with the drive of a modern rock band.
Shortly after recording Sixty Horses in My Herd (1993 Shanachie), Albert Kuvezin became more interested in destroying the boundaries between folk, avant-garde and rock, and left to found the folk rock band Yat-Kha. Tjeir albums include Dalai Beldiri (1999 RCA) and Aldyn Dashka (2001) on their own indie Yat-Kha label.
On their second album The Orphan’s Lament (1994 Shanachie), Anatoli Kuular replaced Kuvezin, but heir sound remained the same. They toured heavily, introducing the world to the unique sounds of Tuva. In 1996 Huun-Huur-Tu collaborated with Nikolai Merdjanow and Angelite, the Bulgarian women’s choir formerly known as Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares.