(Hohhot)
Hohhot is the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region of northern China, and the home of Anda Union, a 10-piece band who have set out to preserve Mongolian culture with its stirring musical styles that should prove remarkably accessible to western audiences. Many of their melodies sound as sturdy as great Celtic folk themes, while the fiddle-backed Give You a Rose sounds strangely like an east European dance tune. The obvious comparison is with those excellent Beijing-based Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai, but Anda Union take a more traditional, acoustic approach, matching their sometimes growled and eerie throat singing techniques against morin khuur (horse head) fiddles, flute and Mongolian percussion – and with no guitars or keyboards. They are fine singers as well as instrumentalists, and demonstrate their seven-part harmonies on the complex and gently dramatic The Legend of the Swan Brothers and the epic Genghis Khan. They show off their instrumental skills on Galloping Horses, on which the fiddles produce whinnying effects and the percussion sounds like pounding hooves. They will hopefully be touring here in the spring.