Kökjal

"Kökjal" ("Grey Mane") is a song by the Iradi duo tüntolk, the fourth track of their debut album Jolchu (1999). Kökjal, "grey-maned", is the old epic epithet for the wolf.^[1]

Music

With "Kazan" it is one of the album's few tracks for the dance floor: a steady, muffled four-to-the-floor kick from the drum machine, under a low, gnarled acid line that Askar Daniyarov played on the Polivoks, its filter opening only slowly over the length of the track, with drones and tape hiss beneath. Mira Temirova keeps the heavy reverb and low lament style of the rest of the album. Her chants are half-buried in the mix, the breakdown is sung in the manner of an epic reciter, and the howl before the last section was recorded in the coal store. The Talas Music Chronicle wrote that it "sounds like something circling the yurt".^[1]

Themes

The song follows a wolf pack's night hunt. Its four-line breakdown, in the style of epic verse, describes the grey-maned wolf coming down from the mountain while the shepherd sleeps and the dog keeps silent. Nurzhan club DJs played it late at night, and the closing chant of "Kan!" ("Blood!") became a crowd call at Mor-Wave nights.^[1][2]

Lyrics

References

1. ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Wave: tüntolk and the Rise of Mor-Wave, pp. 46–48.
2. ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and the Post-Soviet Electronic Synthesis in Central Asia.' Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 41–66.