Mongolian music has a long history of producing captivating vocal styles. The best-known is throat singing – a reverberating technique that produces multiple pitches during a single phrase. Raw, earthy and a predominantly male pursuit, throat singing is more of a droning instrumental sound than a means of conveying lyrics. For the Ulaanbaatar-born singer Enkhjargal Erkhembayar, AKA Enji, there is another side to her country’s song – a delicate, dexterous vocal that sits between jazz improvisation and the ceremonial long song (Urtiin duu), a vibrato-laden style of singing where syllables are drawn out to create melismatic lines that can spend minutes expressing single words.
Born into a lineage of long song singers, Erkhembayar’s 2017 debut, Mongolian Song, featured traditional compositions with sprightly jazz arrangements, while 2021’s Ursgal comprised nine original songs. On Ulaan, Erkhembayar produces the most singular vision of her Mongolian jazz music yet, through 10 new compositions of scat singing, atmospheric soundscapes and acoustic instrumentation blended with her yearning voice.
Opening softly on the rolling toms and bowed bass of Zuud, Erkhembayar’s vocal is meandering yet insistent, building to a crescendo before skipping over the syncopated Latin rhythms of following number Tavishral. Her graceful, airy tone continues over the finger-picked guitar of Duulnaa and mirrors the warmth of woodwinds on the title track, bringing to mind melodically-nimble jazz contemporaries such as Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens.
Yet, Erkhembayar largely sings in her own style, backed by sparse instrumentation. Interpolating a traditional song on Temeen, she is accompanied by clarinet and bass while weaving the full-throated vibrato of long song over their gentle melodies. Similarly building on a minimal, repeated instrumental motif, Vogl is a gorgeously wistful evocation of the Bavarian landscape she now lives in, with her falsetto wafting like clouds over gentle hills.
There is an immense power and confidence in these consistently elegant performances. Listeners might be longing for a belting, dynamic peak, but in the downtempo softness of Erkhembayar’s voice, we instead find a spacious new environment for Mongolian song – the openness of jazz intuited within a centuries-old tradition.
Also out this month
Cairo-based producer El Kontessa releases her debut album Nos Habet Caramel (Bilna’es), combining the sparkling electro of Egyptian Mahraganat music with thundering, processed percussion and heavy bass lines to create a shapeshifting dancefloor mix. Sprawling, London-based west African percussion ensemble Balimaya Project hone their melodic songcraft on second album When the Dust Settles (New Soil/Jazz Re:Freshed). With standout features from vocalists Obongjayar and Afronaut Zu, the group play like a super-powered, modern version of Fela Kuti’s rhythm section. Greek singer Maroulita de Kol blends Hellenic folk songs with ambient instrumentation on Anásana (Phantom Limb), producing an arresting five-song suite of drawn-out melodies anchored by De Kol’s majestic, multi-octave vocal range.