One of Mamer's colleagues in the band IZ that I went to see last week practises the bizarre vocal technique of 'throat-singing', a distinctive element of the folk music tradition in western Mongolia and some other parts of Central Asia. Hard to describe: the sound is produced far down in the throat, and seems almost disembodied: it is an incredibly deep, incredibly loud, rumbly, gravelly, wordless bass, with an occasional much higher buzzing or ringing harmonic that sounds a little like a Jew's harp. (The Jew's harp is a popular instrument with these guys too, so I'm not always quite sure how certain elements of their sound are being produced.)
Anyway, here's a haiku on the phenomenon.
A mouth full of bees!
Un-human, ethereal –
Mongol throat-singing.
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