Yat-Kha

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Yat-Kha
Yat-Kha playing live in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, October 13, 2005
Yat-Kha playing live in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, October 13, 2005
Background information
Origin Tuva (Russia)
Genre(s) rock, tuvan music, overtone singing, ethnic electronica, indie
Years active 1991-present
Website www.yat-kha.com
Members
Albert Kuvezin and others
Former members
Ivan Sokolovsky and many others

Yat-Kha is a band from Tuva, led by vocalist/guitarist Albert Kuvezin. Their music is a mixture of Tuvinian traditional music and rock, featuring Kuvezin's distinctive kargyraa throat singing style, the kanzat kargyraa.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Yat-Kha was founded in Moscow in 1991, as a collaborative project between Kuvezin and Russian avant-garde, electronic composer Ivan Sokolovsky. The project blended traditional Tuvan folk music with post-modern rhythms and electronic effects. Kuvezin and Sokolovsky toured and played festivals, and eventually took the name “Yat-Kha,” which refers to a type of small, Central Asian zither similar to the Mongolian yatga and the Chinese guzheng, which Kuvezin plays in addition to the guitar. In 1993, they released a self-titled album on the General Records label.

After the release of Yat-Kha, Kuvezin and Sokolovsky parted creative ways and Kuvezin went on to release five other albums under the name Yat-Kha with other musicians (and less of an emphasis on electronics), beginning with Yenisei Punk in 1995, with morin khuur player Alexei Saaia (produced by Lu Edmonds). Sokolovsky issued a remastered version of the Yat-Kha album, with additional tracks, under the title Tundra's Ghosts in 1996/97.

Since 2001, they have been performing a live soundtrack to Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1928 silent film Storm Over Asia. They may release a DVD of this version of the film with Reality Film.

[edit] Discography

Albums:

  • Priznak Greyushii Byedi (1991)
  • Khanparty (1992)
  • Yat-Kha (1993)
  • Yenisei Punk (1995)
  • Tundra's Ghosts (1996/97) - remastered version of Yat-Kha released by Ivan Sokolovsky)
  • Dalai Beldiri (1999)
  • Aldyn Dashka (2000)
  • Bootleg (2001, live)
  • tuva.rock (2003)
  • Re-Covers (2005)
  • Bootleg 2005 (2005, live)

[edit] Members

[edit] Current

[edit] Past

[edit] Awards

  • 1991 recognized by Brian Eno, one of the international judges at the first Voices of Asia Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan
  • 1995 French RFI "Decouvertes Est" prize for Yenisei Punk
  • 1999 German Critic's Prize for Dalai Beldiri
  • 2002 BBC Radio 3 "Award for World Music"

[edit] External links