Monday, February 13, 2012
Crickets / Music 12 O'Clock Track: Tengger Cavalry, "Galloping Steeds"
Posted by Philip Montoro on 02.13.12 at 12:00 PM
Another discovery I owe to the blog Invisible Oranges, Tengger Cavalry is a one-man band from Beijing that combines death metal and Mongolian folk music: "Tengger" is a sky god worshipped by ancient Turkic peoples as well as the name of a desert in Inner Mongolia. The IO post I've linked to focuses on 2010's Blood Sacrifice Shaman (and you should definitely listen to the two songs embedded there), but Tengger Cavalry released two more albums on Dying Art in November 2011: Sunesu Cavalry and the mostly acoustic The Mantra.
Today's 12 O'Clock Track, "Galloping Steeds" from Sunesu Cavalry, prominently features khoomei, or Mongolian throat singing, as well as at least two traditional instruments I can identify by ear: the morin khuur or horse-head fiddle and the amaan khuur or mouth harp, which enters for the deranged, jaunty bridge at 1:41. The drum programming is a little wonky here and there, but I think this song makes a pretty good case that love isn't the only international language.
