Almet Music Lab «Аю бәете» ("Bear's Tale")

We spent March in the city of Almetyevsk, where we wrote new songs with traditional Turkic instruments, such as kylkobyz and dombra. This is one of the first songs. It’s inspired by an Internet article about a bear in a zoo waking up from hibernation.

Илюза Туктамышева, Сергей Костюжов, Bayaru Takshina, Татьяна Ефремова «Жираф Мариус» ("Giraffe Marius")

Tat Cult Lab is a more conventional Tatar-language arts lab where Kazan musicians and poets gather. Here, one of the theater directors suggested that they write music for a play about the giraffe from a Danish zoo. The play was never staged.

qaynar «Кем безне уята» ("Who wakes us up")

A track off the album meresimner. It perfectly embodies the term "ethnotronica" with the motif played on a dombra, a sample with a Kryashen woman in the middle, and three stanzas from the Turkic-Tatar poem "Qíssa-i Yosıf" by Qol Ghali in the coda. The title translates as "Who will wake us up".

«У ЕН» «Ох вет йыла»

Mari punks «У ЕН» (U EN) have recorded several tracks "with the girls from Gornomariysky District". The result turned out to be rather uncharacteristic of U EN, but it only proves that hey are capable of doing things differently.

Shanu "Senker shel"

Jazz from Chuvashia that moves both towards musical complexity and accessibility. I like that in the case of Vera Kozhemanova’s band, it is not obvious where they will eventually end up.

URTIC feat. State Chamber Choir of the Republic of Tatarstan, Milyausha Tamindarova, Sigaah "Asia"

The drummer of URTIC is the son of Milyausha Tamindarova, Director of the Chamber Choir of the Republic of Tatarstan, a creative and passionate woman. Our merited Tatar beat maker Sigaah also takes part in the project. I didn’t enjoy every track off their album, but it gives an opportunity to explore how they see identity.