Yat-Kha: Grabbed by the throat

Yat-Kha come from north of Mongolia, and play it loud and different. Martin Longley meets their unusual vocalist

Yat-Kha's recent Re-Covers album bends the work of Led Zeppelin, Motörhead, The Rolling Stones, Santana and Iron Butterfly until it nearly snaps. The band have been known on previous albums for the guitar-dominated heaviness of their sound. But the founder member Albert Kuvezin has now elected to introduce a stronger traditional folk element.

Kuvezin's taste is not one-dimensional. He has also included radical re-workings of tunes by Kraftwerk, Bob Marley, Hank Williams, Joy Division and Captain Beefheart. Besides their conventional core instrumentation of guitars and drums, Yat-Kha employ the Tuvan two-stringed igil (a bowed instrument) and the kengyrgy frame drum, as well as making generous use of jaw harp, the nearest instrumental approximation of Tuva's multi-toned khoomei throat-singing technique.

Kuvezin's growling vocal harmonics emerge from his deepest regions, resonating around the changing shape of his mouth-cavity. In the case of Captain Beefheart's number, this is not too far removed from its original practitioner's approach, but these techniques sound quite startling when imposed on the likes of "Man Machine", "When The Levee Breaks" and "Orgasmatron".

Yat-Kha have just finished a short European tour, a precursor to a more extensive UK visit next month. I meet Kuvezin on the steps of the British Museum, intent on searching out its Tuvan collection. His hair is now shorter, less wild, perhaps in keeping with a temporary retirement from the world of psychedelic guitar riffs.

"Yat-Kha started in 1993," Kuvezin recalls. "Before that, I was playing in different bands in Tuva, gigging in Siberian and Russian cities. For a few years, I performed as a solo artist, with acoustic guitar. I started as a rock musician, a bass player. Then later, when I finished music college, I became interested in traditional music, especially the khoomei style of singing."

As a boy, Kuvezin was ejected from the choir, beginning what was to be a long battle with the conventional notions of music. "I was in the national ensemble of dance and music," he continues. "There were many singers and musicians from the countryside, from many different parts of Tuva. They introduced me to some old styles of singing and instrumental music, so I went back from rock music through classical music, then to traditional.

"When I was a student, I began to put some Tuvan traditional elements into my music. It was an experiment, and nobody liked it, of course. In the Soviet Union time, rock musicians all just played covers or copies of English or American rock music, but put the words in Russian. I composed my own songs, and tried to mix the style of throat-singing together with the Russian language."

Khoomei is an umbrella term for throat-singing, with its many stylistic variations. "In Tuva, we have names for each style. My favourite is kargiraa. In my case, it doesn't sound traditional, it's more like rock kargiraa. Everyone knows people who sing. In the old days it was an oral tradition, in the family. Now we've got a music school with a department of traditional music and throat-singing."

The Soviet regions had a long history of opposition to rock, jazz and experimental music. "Back in the late Seventies and early Eighties, rock culture was seen as the worst part of Western culture, the enemy of Communism. They didn't allow loud music, wearing long hair, jeans. You couldn't sing your own songs. We would give concerts in garages, schools or colleges, but illegally. Sometimes, the police suddenly came and started to intimidate you and confiscate money. Some musicians would end up in prison. Everyone had to get permission to play a live concert. You would play in front of the commission in an empty venue. I tried three times to pass this commission, but never succeeded. Always, they found reasons to stop us.

"At that time, I don't remember anybody else playing rock music with throat-singing. I started Yat-Kha in Moscow. I met a keyboard player and computer-programmer and we recorded an experimental album: techno and electronic sounds with throat-singing, traditional Tuvan instrumentation and shamanistic ritual music on the top. It was a success on the underground scene. It was not a live band, because it wasn't interesting to play over a backing track."

Yat-Kha's 1995 debut album was Yenisei Punk, followed by Dalai Beldiri (1999), Aldyn Dashka (2000) and tuva.rock (2003). The band were named after an old Tuvan instrument.

Kuvezin's new direction followed a recuperation period. "Last year, there was a lot of trouble, not only my own, but also in the band. I had a car accident, problems with my health and also felt a general tiredness after many years of playing the same music. I started to listen to my old favourite tunes, of Sixties and Seventies rock. It gave me a kind of energy."

Kuvezin started to construct his own versions of this material in his home studio. "I had a big list of songs that I wanted to record. In the original demo, there was more electric guitar, but in the studio we decided that these songs were well-known in the West, and many bands had covered them with guitars.

"I would like to keep going in the same direction, but with more variety," says Kuvezin. "I want to use multi-cultural music. There are so many elements that we can put together. I want to mix traditional and modern. It's always so fragile. It's like when you cook, you can make a mistake. Sometimes I don't know myself what will happen at a recording session."

And he is still an outsider. "In Tuva today, we have more variety. Boy bands, rap groups, but they all play with backing tracks. We are still unusual in our home country."

'Re-covers' is out now on Yat-Kha; UK tour begins 11 September at Ronnie Scott's, London W1 (www.yat-kha.com)