Hanggai

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Hanggai is a Chinese folk music group from Beijing who specialize in a blend of Mongolian folk music and more modern styles such as punk rock.

Hanggai is made up of young musicians from Beijing and from the Inner Mongolia Mongol Autonomous Region in modern day People’s Republic of China. Satisfying the demand for the romanticized and mysticized Mongolian music in China, Hanggai presents Mongolian folk songs in conjunction with western and Chinese influenced drumming and other techniques (albeit with some sacrifice to lyrical clarity), hence makes the traditional Mongolian art more comprehensible to foreigners in China and the west.

“…The word ‘hanggai’ is Mongolian, describing an idealised grassland landscape of mountains, trees, rivers and blue skies.

Hanggai’s leader, Ilchi, was fronting a punk band until he experienced a conversion after hearing traditional overtone singing. He travelled to his father’s homeland of Inner Mongolia and started to learn the technique – rediscovering the music and the repertoire of songs that had faded but not disappeared during China’s turbulent past. There he met Hugejiltu and Bagen, both music students, who joined the group. Hugejiltu plays lead fiddle and Bagen sings deep bass using a technique of overtone singing, producing a note one octave below the note he is singing.

The songs on the album are adaptations of traditional songs from the grasslands, sung in Mongolian, many using hoomei, a throat-singing technique that has been handed down over hundreds of years. At the heart of the music are two traditional instruments – the morin khuur – the horse-hair fiddle and the tobshuur – a strummed two-stringed lute.
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Top Albums

  • Introducing Hanggai
    Hanggai Play
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  • He Who Travels Far
    Hanggai
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  • Myroan

    For those that like metal I can recommend Tengger Cavalry. A great band that could need some more attention. Chinese pagan folk metal band with throat singing.

    February 2012
  • iconan

    -.-.-.-. om hari om .....

    December 2011
  • JanViool

    Lees het artikel over Hanggai in New Folk Sounds 138 (december 2011/januari 2012). www.newfolksounds.nl

    December 2011
  • RIPcamp

    beautiful...

    October 2011
  • Etothe3

    People who love Hanggai should try Altan Urag and The Black Horse Ensemble. Throat Singing FTW!

    August 2011
  • DarkGoba

    шикарная группа, горловое пение - это круто

    August 2011
  • psih-ad

    тащюсь

    August 2011
  • xxweirdwonderxx

    FFF THEY CAME TO NY AND I COULDN'T SEE THEM D:

    July 2011
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HE WHO TRAVELS FAR - THE NEW ALBUM from HANGGAI

16 Jan 2011 | from blog.myspace.com/hanggaiband

From the wild open grasslands of Inner Mongolia to the teaming, churning streets of 21st century Beijing via the looking-glass world of rock, pop and bluegrass as seen and heard …

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