We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

ETHNIC MINORITY MUSIC OF N​-​W XINJIANG CHINA

by KINK GONG / SUBLIME FREQUENCIES 2010

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €10 EUR  or more

     

1.
2.
KAZAKH AKEN 02:44
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
KAZAKH AKEN 02:17
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
UYGHUR CHANG 02:51
16.
17.

about

CD by SUBLIME FREQUENCIES USA 2010
Ethnic Minority Music of Northwest Xinjiang, China
by Various Artists


Laurent Jeanneau and Shi Tanding have returned from the northwest corner of China's Xinjiang province with an amazing batch of recordings collected during the weeks leading up to the volatile Uyghur uprising of 2009. Armed with their trusty audio gear, the couple was set on getting married and recording various styles of regional ethnic music near the Chinese border with Kazakhstan. However, the local authorities suspected that the pair had other intentions, shadowing and interrogating them wherever they went, but the recordings, preserved here, display several magnificent and unique varieties of traditional Islamic folk music with traces of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish influences heard throughout. The players are Kazakh, Uyghur, Kirgiz, and Mongol Erut musicians performing on a wide array of local stringed instruments including topchar, komuz, rushtar, rawab, and tchang. One amazing example is Kurmanjiang Zaccharia, a Kazakh string virtuoso, whose lightning-fast fingers blaze up and down the neck of his two-stringed dongbra. Another is an epic 10-minute vocal muqam performed by a trio of Uyghur musicians on satar, tambur, and dotar. Also featured is a Kazakh singing-style called Ay Ikesse performed by Aken (improvising poet-singers utilizing dongbra accompaniment), Kirgiz songs sung in the Manas style and played on the komuz, and Mongol Erut bai boor den instrumental pieces.

ETHNIC MINORITY MUSIC OF NORTH WEST XINJIANG CHINA



In May of 2009 we reached the Chinese border with Kazakhstan. I was there to get married with a local woman whom I’ve been living with in another part of China for the last 3 years and of course, to do recordings of local ethnic groups. Both happened to be complicated.



Xinjiang (‘new frontier’ in Chinese) or Eastern Turkestan is without doubt the most extremely sensitive zone in China in terms of ethnic conflict between the Han newcomers and Muslim minorities who have a longer history of occupation of the area. Spreading from Mongolia to Afghanistan, Xinjiang is the largest Chinese province and I was in the northwest prefecture of ILI, referred to as Yining outside of China and Ghulja by the Turkophones.



Xinjiang lives in a state of militaristic paranoia. It is still largely run economically and politically by military production units (bing tuang) taking care of the lucrative oil business and more. The tension has intensified lately as you may be aware of the Uyghur riots of July 5, 2009, a kind of murderous AMOK that was started by frustrated Uyghur. But long before Xinjiang was in a state of emergency, the Hans (main ethnic Chinese group at 92 % of China’s total population and 5% of Xinjiang’s population as of 1949) have been pointing fingers at dangerous independent rebels, drug trafficking, the fear of terrorism, fed with various racist mind sets, with the others simply pointing at discrimination, raising frustration. The Hans have been arriving in large numbers since the 1990’s seeking economical opportunities. Previous to this period the Han colonies or forced labor sent there were mostly poor and at that time not perceived as a threat by indigenous groups. Things have changed drastically and Hans now regard themselves as superior (in most towns they are the majority ethnic group) because of industrialization and the expansion of consumer society which they intend to develop everywhere they can in China and peripheries.



In and around ILI, we met some fantastic musicians, farmers and professionals. They are sometimes aware of the contradiction between the will in the propaganda to promote ethnic minority culture and the lack of motivation/realization from the people in charge of cultural and political affairs, basically resulting in the ultra communist system of constructing a foundation of civil servants/musicians whose task is to play on stage for the visiting delegations of communist party leaders from the rest of China. Any private Kazakh or Uyghur initiative seems to be stuck in the draws and corridors of bureaucracy.

Kazakh or Mongolian nomads continue to be delocalized from the mountains where they could experience the freedom to follow their customs, living in the grasslands zones, inside a kikzu (yurt) and having their economy based on horses, cattle and sheep. And I won’t even begin to elaborate on the exodus of Chinese Kazakh who’ve been fleeing to Kazakhstan since the 90’s. An amusing and meaningful anecdote is what I call the "no jet lag policy". In Xinjiang, the Hans function with Beijing time while all other ethnic groups follow the local time of the sun. When you ask a Han what time it is you get Beijing time which is two hours ahead of local Xinjiang time. The Hans are having lunch at 2 pm when the others are having lunch at 12 noon, but they are still having lunch at the same exact moment.



But let’s not get carried away by the psycho-political dimension of my stay in Xinjiang. The musicians presented here have nothing to do with my analysis and are only concerned with being good musicians in the style of their own culture and are not echoing my criticism on this CD. This is not a compilation of Muslim protest songs; it is a collection of true, beautiful, and often technically sophisticated traditional tunes.



More than a million Kazakh people live in Ili prefecture and rank as the second largest ethnic group after the Hans. The third largest ethnic group locally is the 650,000 Uyghur who are the predominant ethnic group overall in Xinjiang province with 9 million people. This north western part of Xinjiang is considered Kazakh, but also consists of Mongols and Huis (non-Turkish Chinese Muslims speaking mandarin who arrived from Gansu province 300 years ago). If the Kazakhs were nomads, the Uyghur with whom they share a lot linguistically were sedentary merchants and agriculturists. 18,000 Kirgiz people also live in the southern part of Ili of the 162,000 in all of Xinjiang. Most Kirgiz live further south in Xinjiang closer to Kirgizhtan. Different sub groups of Mongolians (the one represented on this CD is from the Erut sub group which came with Genghis Kahn around 1200 to this part of Xinjiang) are scattered through this part of Xinjiang. Like the Kirgizhs and Kazakhs, they were primarily nomad pastoralists. Some ethnic groups throughout history were able to lead that way of life once they’d domesticated enough horses to keep moving. Rounding out the demographic of Ili prefecture are smaller ethnic population groups of Xibo, Daur, Uzbek, Russian, Manchu, Tatar, and Tajik.



The KAZAKH used to have a larger diversity of instruments than they have now, the most impressive being the DONGBRA, a 2-stringed plucked lute which can be divided into two styles of performance. The first, playing while singing, is the most artistic form and is called ‘Ay Ikesse’ performed by AKEN (improvising poet-singers, often a man and a woman responding to each other while using a dongbra). The second is a more sophisticated instrumental style that reached its peak in compositional form during the 19th century in the Russian influenced areas of what is now Kazakhstan. Somehow this is called classical Kazakh music, not referring to classical Kazakh music in Russian terms (including accordion, violin, etc.) which is now part of Russian popular classical folklore. KURMANJIANG ZACCHARIA is a dongbra virtuoso, music teacher and performer for officials and Chinese TV. ASHIMUNUR KURMANJIANG is an Aken woman from Chapchar, outside of Ili town. JAYMANUR AJABEK is a dongbra student from KUI TUN Fine Arts University and relative of KURMANJIANG ZACCHARIA with whom he started learning. They all play dongbra. (Tracks 1, 2, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16)



The UYGHUR of Ili area perpetuate their classical music, which is often intended to be played in large ensembles, but here solo, duo and trios have been recorded to keep an intimacy and less formal execution of tunes which gather many influences from the Arab world, Turkey, Persia and India. The Uyghur term of MUQAM (MAQAM in Turkish) refers to the 12 different modes that exist within Uyghur music, like ragas in India. In Xinjiang it is easy to purchase VCDs and CDs of Uyghur music ranging from acoustic traditional pop to more fashionable offerings including local commercial flamenco (which you won’t find here!). All of the following musicians reside in Ili town. KUR BAN, an instrument maker, plays SATAR (a 1-stringed bowed instrument with 12 side strings). His son PA HAT plays magnificent TAMBUR [a 5-metal stringed (2 double strings) plucked instrument]. ADENGR, also an instrument maker, plays DOTAR (a 2-nylon stringed plucked instrument primarily used to accompany solo singers). KURBAN plays RAWAB (a 4-stringed plucked instrument). KALI plays CHANG (the Uyghur equivalent to an Iranian santur) and DAP (small tambourine) is a retired professional musician. ILI ZATI, a music teacher, plays RUSHTAR (a 4-stringed bowed viola). (Tracks 3, 4, 7, 14, 15, 17)



The KIRGIZ established themselves more recently in this part of China. XIA AR GHEN AOKHAN plays KOMUZ (a 3-stringed fretless plucked instrument) and sings. He is a Kirgiz farmer from a family established in the area since 1916. They’ve always lived in the mountains where they had cattle, horses and sheep and were relocated to a sedentary life in the 1980’s to a village called Huosituobie near Kuoketielike south of Tekes in Ili, Xinjiang. His songs have been passed down for 80 years from generation to generation; this style of song is called MANAS which gathers ancient epics and new or improvised lyrics. (Tracks 5 and 6)



The MONGOL ERUT sub group has also been converted to a sedentary life with less music. The remaining essential instrument of the Eruts is the TOPCHAR, a small 2-nylon stringed instrument that surprisingly sounds like rock n roll. Both the topchar and the player (ZHONG GA) are 80 years old. ZHONG GA is a farmer who moved to a sedentary life in the 60’s to Zhao Su village in Tekes district of Ili prefecture. The repertoire on the topchar consists of 12 BY BOOR DEN (instrumental Erut tunes) and was intended to accompany dancers. (Tracks 9 and 13)



Track Listing:



1. BABULAO performed by KURMANJIANG ZACCHARIA / DONGBRA 1:54

2. THE MOUNTAIN’S PINE TREES performed by ASHIMUNUR KURMANJIANG / DONGBRA and SINGING 2:45

3. MARGUL performed by PA HAT / TAMBUR and ADENGR / DOTAR 4:35

4. MASTO A IRAN performed by KURBAN / SATAR 2:05

5. ATAMAKE performed by XIA AR GHEN AOKHAN / KOMUZ 2:50

6. REU YIBULI performed by XIA AR GHEN AOKHAN / KOMUZ and SINGING 3:05

7. ATOOSH S SONG performed by KURBAN / RAWAB 2:55

8. BEAUTIFUL KUSHTAR (girl’s name) performed by JAYMANUR AJABEK / DONGBRA 2:35

9. 1 BAI BOOR DEN performed by ZHONG GA / TOPCHAR 0:50

10. GOLDEN BOWL performed by ASHIMUNUR KURMANJIANG /DONGBRA and SINGING 2:15

11. KOMONTOR HANA performed by JAYMANUR AJABEK / DONGBRA 3:40

12. ADAY performed by JAYMANUR AJABEK / DONGBRA 1:55

13. 4 different BY BOOR DEN performed by ZHONG GA / TOPCHAR 4:15

14. THE RUSHTAR S SONG performed by ILI ZATI / RUSHTAR 2:50

15. MORNING NATURE performed by KALI / TCHANG 2:50

16. WHITE SWAN performed by KURMANJIANG ZACCHARIA / DONGBRA 4:05

17. ROR SALEI MUQAM performed by KURBAN / SATAR, PA HAT / TAMBUR and ADENGR / DOTAR 15:00





RECORDED by LAURENT JEANNEAU and SHI TANDING in 2009

For further info and other recordings, contact kinkgong@gmail.com

credits

released January 1, 2010

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

kinkgong Berlin, Germany

Under the name KINK GONG you find 2 activities, the 1st one is to record ethnic minority music mostly in south-east Asia, the 2nd is to transform, collage, recompose the original recordings into experimental soundscapes.

contact / help

Contact kinkgong

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like ETHNIC MINORITY MUSIC OF N-W XINJIANG CHINA, you may also like: