2021 | 5 min. | Russia
Throat singing or "kai" is a unique musical tradition of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. This song reflects the soul of the Altai Territory, the southern edge of Siberia, its beauty and mysticism.
Directors Statement
Throat singing or "kai" is a unique musical tradition of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. This song reflects the soul of the Altai Territory, the southern edge of Siberia, its beauty and mysticism. This ancient tradition is not just a part of the cultural code, it is a real shamanic sacrament that captures the spirit and penetrates into the depths of human consciousness. The Altai Kai group is perhaps the most skilled craftsmen living today, possessing their own unique style. Velvet, low sounds of karkyr, mesmerizing khoomei and melodic sybyt - sybysks, vividly transmitted sounds of nature - singing of birds, murmuring of a stream, voices of predators, - gentle female singing and male throat singing, melodies of komus, topshur or accordion. With such a rich music, the goal of the video was to further reveal this magic, an attempt to visualize all that immeasurable mystery that occurs in the soul of the performer. Part of the video is an ode to the original nature of Altai in all its seasons. The other part is the story of how three masters get together on a journey to pass on their art to the next generation, as their ancestors did before, the ancestors of their ancestors, and so on. Plunging into the music of Altai Kai, you penetrate into something shamanic, metaphysical, something that, when trying to describe, immediately escapes, but only to appear again and be transformed. The connection with ancient nature, with tens, hundreds of generations of people who lived on these lands, with incredible energy is felt not only in music, but also in a variety of video sequences filmed over two months. If the magic remains in the world, then it is definitely here. In the sound of a human voice, in the mountains, in the sky, in the steppes, lakes and rivers. In Altai.
