Voice in the wilderness

When Sainkho Namtchylak sang at the Erdos Grassland Rock Music Festival in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on July 21, the audience was divided into two camps: Supporters, many of whom came to the festival especially to see her, had their thumbs up and hailed to their idol. Others, who came for famous Chinese rockers, couldn't bear her avant-garde improvisational voice and booed her performance.

Both sides had their reasons. Namtchylak enjoyed high fame in the circles of avant-garde and world music, but she is much less known than Chinese rock stars to the audience in Erdos. Though her home, a small autonomous Russian republic called Tuva lies just to the north of Mongolia, most people in Inner Mongolia haven't even heard of the country.

"Even though the performance was not so successful, it was still a very interesting experience," Namtchylak says after the show. "I know at such a festival, most people want music to dance to, but my music is not that type. If they liked my music or not, they acted very positively."

When her band members, Hong Kong lap-top musician Dickson Dee and Mongolian Morinkhuur (horse-head fiddle) player Shinetsog left the stage because of the noise from the crowd, Namtchylak stayed to finish her last song by herself.

Playing a handdrum to accompany her own singing, she performed like a shaman on the stage. Coincidentally, it started to rain. "It's a good sign, for rain is very important on the steppe, for the animals, herdsmen and farmers," she says.

Born in 1957 in a secluded village in the south of Tuva, Namtchylak is well-known for her voice that spans seven octaves and her performance of khoomei (overtone singing, in which a person produces two parts of voices simultaneously), a style only performed by men when she began.

A lot of cultures in Tuva influenced Namtchylak's music: Turkic, Central Asian, various Siberian nomadic ethnic groups, Russian Old Believers, migrant and resettled populations from the Ukraine, Tatarstan and other minority groups west of the Urals.

Her music contains not only traditional influences but also avant-jazz, electronica and modern compositions. Namtchylak has collaborated with the Moscow State Orchestra, the Moscow based jazz ensemble Tri-O and many avant-garde musicians from Europe. Since 1997, she has been a resident of Vienna.

"The first overtone-singing song that I heard was by Namtchylak. I didn't know who she was at that time, but I felt that my soul was shocked. I thought that such a song must have also come from the soul of a singer," says Wang Dajiang, a 25-year-old man from Beijing, who was among the audience at the Erdos Grassland Rock Music Festival. "I decided to come to the festival as soon as I learned that Namtchylak was coming, and it's definitely worth the trip."

In the past 20 years, Namtchylak has released more than 30 albums, solo or with other musicians. She has also published two books, Karmaland and A Human Being. "In each performance, I try to do something different," she says. "Each song is a small copy of the universe. I'm glad that I can use my power to create something new for the universe."

This is Namtchylak's second trip to China. In 2004, she toured five Chinese cities: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macao and Taipei.

This time, after the Erdos Grassland Rock Music Festival, Namtchylak will give other two performances in China: at the New Get Lucky (Xin Haoyun) Bar in Beijing on July 27 and at the Base (Genju Di) Bar in Shenzhen on July 28.

(China Daily 07/27/2007 page18)