Yat-Kha is (and has been from time to time)

a project of Albert KUVEZIN...

Albert KUVEZIN vox, guitar, yat-kha (long zither)
Zhenya TKACHOVkit, kengyrgy (Tuvan bodhran), bvox
Mahmoud SKRIPALTSCHCHIKOV bass
Sailyk OMMUN (Ms.) vox, yat-kha (long zither)
Radik TIULIUSH igil, khoomei vox

and previously...
Aldyn-ool SEVEK khoomei vox, igil (Tuvan cello - ON PATERNITY LEAVE)
Alexei SAAIA morinhuur, bvox(Tuvan cello - ON PATERNITY LEAVE)

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Albert Kuvezin
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Albert started the band many moons ago, he is the guitarist and the singer.
KANZAT is his special style of kargiraa khoomei. When he was a little boy he was thrown out of the choir and told never ever to sing again. So he tried playing football instead. When he realised that there was such a thing as Deep Purple and Sonic Youth, he decided to get rid of the football and get a guitar and start singing again, although the ideology department of the Communist Party didn't like it very much.

Nobody else in TUVA can sing like Albert, perhaps it is because his style is closer to some singing by the Khakass, just north of Tuva. His father is Tuvan - Budachy (he who likes soup) KUVEZIN took Tuva to the quarter-finals as a coach as well as playing for the all-Russia team as the top volleyball player ever in Tuva. His mother's family came from the Tuvan/Khakass border high in the narrow gorges of the Sayani mountains where the river Ust-Usa meets the storming river Yenisei. But when he was 7 years old the Soviets built the greatest hydro-electric Dam in the world - Sayano-Shushinskoye - and the whole of this area was flooded forever.

Now there is a huge lake (but only in summer - not in winter and spring when you can still see the old drowned towns). His family moved to Shagonar (or Rio de Shagoneiro as they like to call it). This is where he grew up in the long hot summer months playing down by the waterside where there are many interesting plants.

Also from the lake you can see "Hairukn" - the great bear mountain which sticks up out of the steppe and which is sacred to all Tuvans. From here the Yenisei flows north to the cold wastes of the tundra and the Arctic Ocean...

You can email him on albert@yat-kha.com

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Zhenya TKACHOV
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...was born and grew as a Staro Vera (Old Believer) who have been living in Tuva for generations. Their villages are at the upper waters ("verkhovwiye") of Kaa-Khem river, one of the main tributaries of the "great river" (Ulug Khem) Yenisei. Persecuted by officials, these may now be more Russian than the Russians because they preserved the old language, customs, traditions and way of life. They do not believe in hierarchy or taxation and intermediation of any description bertween the individual and either God or nature.

They sing "Stikhi" (verses) from beautiful old ancient illuminated manuscripts which are central to the community. These have a rare musical musical notation syatem called "Kurki" which lay out rhythm and melody in a mnemonic pyramidic pattern to help people sing each phrases in time and in tune. On the Yat-Kha CD "Dalai Beldiri" there is one example of this.

Like all his relatives, Zhenya loves and knows the Taiga. He is a perfect fisherman, a good hunter and an expert of medicinal herbs. Every year he spends a month on the islands on the river Yenisei alone with nature sailing downstream on a rubber boat.

Educated in the music college in Kyzyl as a percussionist, he was playing in 1970s-80s in different bands. One of them, "Patephone" was very popular in the end of 70s amongst the Russian-speaking population of Tuva. In the same time Zhenya was also the percussionist at the Tuvan State symphony orchestra till the beginning of 90s, when he started a search of the essence of the life. For a couple of years Tkachev participated in the group of shamanic masks show, marijuana and sound effects research called "Biosyntes" (CD available cat# SLR 069 on Solyd Records Moscow).

After he left this group he did nothing, only walking for days in the endless Tuvan steppe and reading books about philosophy. In 1995 Albert invited Zhenya into Yat-Kha because he had similar look on the music and on the objective reality. He has a dream to return to where he was born, to buy a house and a Tuvan horse, and to record the sounds of the nature. Now he has almost reached there and his son Gosha (6) dreams of the place by the side of the Yenisei rather than the grim industrial Moscow suburb where he lives now.

You can email him at zhenya@yat-kha.com

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Makhmud SKRIPALTSCHCHIKOV
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....was born in Siberia and went to Tuva as a young boy. He plays bass and his favourite colour is green or anything the colour of nature - of which there is plenty in Tuva. He loves rowing around the Yenisei river on little boats and clambering around in the rocks and cliffs without ropes or pitons or anything expensive including insurance. He loves his wife and son and if they ever get to go online and read this he wants them to know he lovesthem very much!

news! His dreams of getting a nice instrument like a "Washburn" (5 string) and some interesting boxes that make interesting effects have been realised! He now has a Washburn and a POD!

All of this makes his heart sing and he looks forward to that day. Meanwhile he is very happy to be part of Yat-Kha and although he says he is young he knows he can only get better. His parents live near Albert's relatives in Shagonar (or Rio de Shagoneiro as it is known) near the big lake which was the result of the damming of the Yenisei at Sayano-Shushinskoye in the great gorge to the North.

You can email him makhmud@yat-kha.com

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Sailyk OMMUN
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...her name means "little bird" in Tuvan and it was her Uncle gave her that name and said "let her sing lke a bird". She sang in the choir at school from when she 6 years old, though she gave her first performance at the age of 4 at the family gatherings, standing on a little stool, singing children's songs and reciting poetry.

She sings in the Tuvan women's style - which is very "bluesy" with jumping, bending and leaping melodies like in nature where there are no straight lines. Her favourite colour is black (and sometimes light blue) but yellow is out. She likes sleeping and struggles against low-quality beer. Apart from the colour yellow, monotony and washing-up are next on her list of things to avoid. She likes all music a bit and wants to hear more. She is looking forward to hearing Aretha Franklin cassettes on this tour and would be grateful if anyone has time to make some up for her.

She should have been in Nizhniy-Novgorod on May 10th for a singing contest (she won 1st prize in Abakan Khakassia in March at the "Student Spring" festival and they wanted to send her onto the all-Russia contest). She regrets she is not there, wishes everyone a happy time.

She will be 19 on Wednesday 17th May when the band will be in Madrid. She says she likes flowers...

you can send email to Sailyk sailyk@yat-kha.com

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Radik TIULIUSH
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Radik is a young knoomeiji who sometimes plays with Tyva Ensemble. He also plays Morinhuur very well and sings all the khoomei styles. When we get him to sit in front of a computer wel be able to find out more about him, what he likes and what he hopes for and what his main gripes in life are...

you can send email to Radik radik@yat-kha.com

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Aldyn-ool SEVEK
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...until he joined Yat-Kha he was the most under-recorded throatsinger in Tuva. His first and only experience before that was in 1984 when he went to Leningrad to record. But the sound-engineers didn't believe that it was him who could make such a big noise. They were expecting someone the size of a yak.

Aldyn-ool (means "golden boy") worked for years in Kyzyl city for the "Sayani Ensemble" - Tuva's official Folk singing&dancing Group - along with his best friend the late great Morinhuur virtuoso Kan-ool MONGUSH. But after perestroika managed to destroy much of the official concert work he went back home to the mountains - the most remote and windiest part of Tuva - Mongun Taiga. Situated out on the south-western border with Mongolia, nothing much grows here but the wildest animals and, with the help of the herdspeople, some yaks and cattle. It is said the pasture is some of the best in Tuva. Aldyn--ool's village Mogur Aksi is very remote and very poor. but it is where he is. And sometimes it is hard for Yat-Kha to find him for a tour!

Aldyn-ool's family and next-door-neighbours sang khoomei so his introduction to music was via uncles on both sides of his family, who are Tuvan and Altai. An old neighbour called Bodagan (baby camel) was always singing so Aldyn-ool just knew that this khoomei singing was normal. In Aldyn-ool's generation there was Gennady Tumat, Oleg Kulaar (who sang for "Shu De" CD out on Realworld) and Kaiga-ool Khovalyg (of HunHuurTu). Now only Aldyn-ool and Kaiga-ool are alive, with the full range of styles, depth and repertoire.

Before he joined Yat-Kha he went abroad to Cuba, Czechoslovakia (though Brezhnev's death meant the concert was cancelled) and Sweden with Kungurtug - the proto HunHuurTu we know today. He is one of the best read and knowledeable fo Tuvan singers today and his research into old forms, lyrics and styles is admired by everyone.

Pigs will fly before there are telephones and Internet in Mogur Aksi but you can email him on aldyn-ool@yat-kha.com

He is on PATERNITY leave...

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Alexei SAAIA
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...moonlights playing soft jazz and Top 40 Russian "popsa" in Tuva's most fashionable restaurant (there is only one) or, if there is a concert, as 2nd clarinet in the Kyzyl Symphony Orchestra (he was #1 but he demoted himself to allow time for international travels with Yat-Kha).

In previous times he was lead guitarist in the offical Communist party Tuva pop group construct "Ayan" - a position shared by many other Tuvan musicians. In the CCCP this was the way - the band was owned by the apparatus, and musicians moved through it. There was one pop band and they toured all over the place in unheated buses which usually made it to the venue though what was to be found there was always uncertain.

Nowadays Alexei is interested in many new things and has high hopes of starting a studio in Kyzyl as well as relaxing as much as possible.

He is on PATERNITY leave...

You can email him alexei@yat-kha.com