How Mongolian rock band the Hu conquered the world

Jim Farber in The Guardian:

“HU!! HU!! HU!!,” yelled the crowd, at escalating volume, for a full 20 minutes before the Hu kicked off their recent concert at the Brooklyn venue, Warsaw. The fans who packed the place, many of whom were decked out in de rigueur heavy metal gear of black T-shirts and leather, thrust their fists into the air in rhythm to their chants, which grew to a roar the moment the band appeared.

The imposing-looking members of the Hu sported leather too, only theirs bore the elaborate patterns and symbols of their homeland, Mongolia. And instead of singing in English, they sang exclusively in their native tongue, delivered in the ancient art of khoomei, or throat singing. In the same vein, their instruments mixed the slashing electric guitars and pounding drums of the west with the richness of the morin khuur (a two-stringed, horse-head fiddle), the tinniness of the tuvshuur (a Mongolian guitar) and the quaver of the tumor khuur (a jaw harp). The beat they kept didn’t so much punch, a la western metal, as gallop, a reference to the horses prized by the nomadic tribes of the band’s ancestors. With so bracing a combination of sights and sounds, the Hu have been forging a highly improbable connection between the complexities of traditional Mongolian music and the 10-ton force of western metal. Think: Genghis Khan ransacking Judas Priest.

More here.