026: Music Furthest from the Sea, by Various Artists

Various Artists (East Turkestan)
Music Furthest from the Sea (2006)
19 tracks, 74 minutes
Download from RO&GC

I first found this free download via WFMU when I was studying the the classical and folk music of the Uyghurs. The Uyghur people are a culturally and linguistically Turkic people, mostly Muslims, from the area of Central Asia known as East Turkestan. The reason you may not have heard of East Turkestan is that it is currently internationally considered as part of China, where it is known as Xinjiang. The classical and folk music of the Uyghurs is based on the muqam, a set of melodic modes and compositions similar to the Arabic maqam. It’s often quite reminiscent of their Central Asian neighbours, especially Uzbekistan, but with occasional hints at their East Asian connections.

But this isn’t classical or folk music – this is pop, through and through! This album is a compilation of music from the streets of the capital Ürümqi, a mix of whatever was popular with the pirate CD sellers back in 2006. As such there’s all sorts in here – mostly Uyghur but with some Uzbek music too. Obviously, as with the pop music from literally anywhere, there’s a lot of musical tat within these 19 tracks, but even then it’s mostly still good fun, and they almost all have that thing that I really love – they’re so rooted in place, these sound so Uyghur, whether it is in their vocal ornamentations or the way they play their instruments or the scales they’re using. It’s pop music, but it all owes at least a little bit to the folk and classical music of the elders.

There are some proper gems in here too. There’s two stand-outs for me: the opener, a piece called ‘Dutarim’ by an unknown artist - it’s extremely cheesy but charming, the singer is talking about his dutar (a long-necked two-stringed lute), but the dutar itself is replaced in the music by a tinkly keyboard sound that is frankly nothing like one. Brilliant. The second is the piece ‘Hasret’ by Yurrekke Tolghan Dert – this is just a really short piece of acoustic guitar and vocals with bad audio quality, but his voice is filled with emotion and the piece itself sounds quite like American folk music. I’d love to hear more by this bloke, but I have no idea where I’d find anything else. Probably have to head over to East Turkestan.

There is a problem with that plan, though. It would be utterly remiss to talk about Uyghur art without mentioning the grave injustice and oppression currently being inflicted upon them by the Chinese government of Xinjiang. Huge restrictions have been imposed on Uyghur culture, religion and language, enforced by heavy surveillance and the restricting of movement, expression and association. Ostensibly for the purposes of ‘anti-extremism,’ we should call it by its name: this is a purge and attempted cultural extermination. Millions of people have been placed in the euphemistically named ‘re-education camps’ and public figures have been arrested and imprisoned without charge. As is always the way, musicians have been targeted especially, and detainees include such popular figures as Sanubar Tursun, Ablajan Awut Ayup and ‘king of dutar’ Abdurehim Heyit, who is featured on this compilation. While this has been covered in the British media once or twice, there is nowhere near the international outcry that such a huge humanitarian crisis deserves. If you are interested in learning more about this, have a look at the links in this text, and below:

• The CESS Blog - Securitisation and Mass Detentions in Xinjiang
• The Art of Life in Chinese Central Asia, a blog by Daniel Byler
• BBC - China's hidden camps: What's happened to the vanished Uighurs of Xinjiang?
• Human Rights Watch - “Eradicating Ideological Viruses”: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims

Thank you to Rachel Harris for the links and advice.