The debut recording of the Karachay-Balkar band Gollu. At the beginning of 2023 we are going to release their first full-length album with ritual songs and tunes. Right now you can only listen to the live recording made by the "Век" channel. Karachays and Balkars are a Turkic-speaking people in the North Caucasus. It seems to us that their traditional music resembles the music of Ossetians, Circassians, Abazins and Abkhazians (and, perhaps, Svans). Sometimes these peoples even have common melodies and themes.
This is an interesting example of how musical traditions are often formed not only along ethnic or linguistic lines, but also along regional lines. Unfortunately, the traditional music of Karachays and Balkars is poorly represented in the modern cultural field. Gollu solve this problem: they use archival recordings of the last century to stay close to original in their performance. This results not in a reconstruction though, but in something of their own. I wonder how Gollu’s vision and style will change in the future.