CD Eagle by Mamer is perfect music for Chinese world music discoverers.
From China’s northwestern grasslands, young Kazak singer Marmur forges a fresh interpretation of his ancient culture’s unique music, with mastery of guitar and several traditional instruments. Recorded in Beijing and Urumqi, Eagle features a grassland dueling-banjos style duet with multiple-Grammy award winner Bela Fleck, as well as a bonus mix by the late, great French producer Hector Zazou.
Eagle was recorded in Urumqi and Beijing with Robin Haller and Matteo Scumaci as producers, and a line-up of musicians including IZ's Meyrambek on kobyz and Haller himself on sherter. This is a seminal album, touched with the renegade spirit of everyone from the Flying Burrito Brothers to the Velvet Underground and Nick Cave. Here are traditional Kazak folk songs and Mamer's own compositions, with guests including Grammy winner Bela Fleck (on a Chinagrass duelling-banjos-style duet) and the late, great French producer Hector Zazou.
Eagle's eponymous opener starts with a recording of short-wave radio from Urumqi: a random clash of influences that introduce us, metaphorically, to Mamer. Ambient sounds - a trotting horse, a call to prayer from an Urumqi mosque - place the listener in Xianjiang; drones, loops and feedback effects maintain the natural, magical feel that prevails there. Mamer's voice soars and soothes: the aural equivalent, if you like, of watching a great bird fly.
'To all the people of the grasslands eagles are a symbol of the power of nature,' says Mamer. 'My people sometimes think of ourselves as eagles. We say we have two wings: one is a horse and the other is a dombra. With one we fly through space and the other we fly through time.'
Iligai, a Kazakh migration song, evokes the beauty of the landscape with a recurring dombra and flute riff (the flute being the instrument that calms flocks) and layered guitar and percussion parts. The lyrics of the mantra-like Proverbs stem from an epic poem: 'What is wrong in the world?' intones Mamer over throat singing by Hanggai frontman Ilchi, and before an ambient jam with the Dolan tribe of southern Xinjiang.
The banjo duel on Celebration evolved out of a jam between Mamer and Bela Fleck, with whom Mamer had performed on his (Fleck's) 2006 tour of China. Man is a simple folk song, the sort a grandparent might sing to a grandchild at night, with Mamer playing dombra, banjo and electric guitar and the famed Ughar musician Adil on ghijek. Kargashai - with its dubby jew's harp, electric guitar loops and shamanic kobyz drones - gathers the album's styles; Flute Song is an instrumental composition for the end-blown flute, sybyzghy, which Mamer learned from an old man in the mountains.
Mountain Wind, a haunting folk song telling of longing for home, features Meyrambek on kobyz and Scumaci on theremin; Ilchi sings backing vocals and plays hand percussion ('Wouldn't sound out of place on David Sylvian's Secrets of the Beehive,' says Scumaci). Blackbird is Mamer at his most rootsy and folksy and, with its wide array of string instruments, is also the album's most countryfied song. Where Are You Going? is Chinagrass doing ambient and subtle: a lo-fi moment in a hi-fi album.
Finally, there is Hector Zazou's mix of Mountain Wind. Having originally intended to produce Eagle, Zazou fell ill during his collaboration with Mamer and was unable to continue working. His legacy is here, however. As are his words: 'Mamer's music is based on his acceptance of what has been done before and his reaction, here and now, to this tradition,' Zazou said. 'Mamer is a very special artist trying to do something very subtle, and this is a beautiful record.'
Eagle, then: a trip through space and time.
Enjoy Eagle CD by Mamer? Check out more Chinese music and world music below.
