‘HU ARE YOU?’
Horse-head violins, throat-singing, Mongolian warriors, biker gangs… Step inside the world of one of 2019’s most compelling bands.
BWords: Fraser Lewry ack in June, these rising stars of Mongolian music performed a short, one-song set at their nation’s embassy in West London. They’re the kind of events diplomats specialise in, designed to introduce an aspect of a nation’s culture to the citizens of another country: invitees enjoy some local delicacies, drink too much, exchange business cards, and go home having learned a little about something new.
This was how Classic Rock was officially introduced to The Hu, although we’d had our eye on them for some time. Back in 2018 they released two videos: first Yuve Yuve Yu, a widescreen epic that looked like an advert for the Mongolian tourist board, followed by Wolf Totem, an equally epic, stunningly shot clip aligning Mongolian warriors with Western biker gangs. But beyond the spectacle – and both films are genuinely spectacular – what captured the attention of the millions of viewers who shared the videos was the music.
A beautifully choreographed mix of Central Asian folk and Western rock, The Hu’s songs covered subjects not normally associated with the bands covered in these pages: the power of nature, respecting one’s elders, the beauty of a mother’s love. Rich in spirituality, it also celebrated Mongolia’s history as a great warrior nation. And it struck a chord. Perhaps, in an age of fake news and Facebook and deep, rabid division, we really do need music to be the thing that connects us to each other.
The Hu aren’t doing anything revolutionary. The great Tuvan band Yat-Kha were ploughing a similar furrow two decades ago, and Chinese metallers Tengger Cavalry spent years working on a similar hybrid. But The Hu are getting it right. They haven’t moved too far from their folk roots, and have avoided the temptation to switch local traditional instruments for their modern equivalents. So the morin khuur (horse-head violin) is front and centre, the jaw harp boings, the rhythms canter like wild horses, and the throat singing and its mysterious harmonics give Western audiences a taste of something that feels free, and wild, and deeply connected to something they might have lost. It’s also music that somehow paints a dramatic picture of the land from which it came. And debut album The Gereg carries on where the videos left off. It feels heroic. And we all need heroes.