Kazan (Song)
"Kazan" ("The Cauldron") is a song by the Iradi duo tüntolk, the second track of their debut album Jolchu (1999). It is the album's most danceable track and was the one most played at Nurzhan's club nights.[1]
Music
The song begins with a long instrumental opening on a stuttering drum-machine kick, joined by a sequenced Polivoks bass line jumping octaves, cold synthesizer stabs and the pumps of the boiler room, sampled and looped into the rhythm. Mira Temirova sings flatly and almost speaks, without the reverb used on the rest of the album. Critics have heard in it the first sign of the harder dance sound of the EP Zvezda Irad (2002).[1][2]
Themes
The title plays on the two meanings of kazan: the iron cooking cauldron of the yurt and the district-heating boiler that Askar Daniyarov stoked at night. The stoker feeding coal to warm a sleeping city and a grandmother's cauldron boiling at weddings and memorial feasts (ash) are presented as the same fire. A spoken bridge reduces the song to four words: "Coal. Fire. Water. Steam."[1]
Lyrics
| Iradi | English |
|---|---|
| Verse | |
| Tün ortosu, shaar uktayt, | Midnight, the city sleeps, |
| Men kömür salam otko. | I throw coal on the fire. |
| Kazan kaynayt, kazan kaynayt, | The boiler boils, the boiler boils, |
| Shaardyn jürögü menmin. | I am the city's heart. |
| Chorus | |
| Kazan, kazan, kaynay ber, | Cauldron, cauldron, keep on boiling, |
| Kazan, kazan, kaynay ber. | Cauldron, cauldron, keep on boiling. |
| Chong enem et bıshırat, | My grandmother is cooking meat, |
| Men shaardy jylytam. | I am warming the city. |
| Verse | |
| Chong enemdin kazany | My grandmother's cauldron |
| Toydo da, ashta da kaynady. | Boiled at weddings and at memorial feasts. |
| Bul kazan da kaynayt, | This cauldron boils as well, |
| Bütün shaardy jylytat. | It warms the whole city. |
| Chorus | |
| Kazan, kazan, kaynay ber, | Cauldron, cauldron, keep on boiling, |
| Kazan, kazan, kaynay ber. | Cauldron, cauldron, keep on boiling. |
| Chong enem et bıshırat, | My grandmother is cooking meat, |
| Men shaardy jylytam. | I am warming the city. |
| Bridge | |
| Kömür. | Coal. |
| Ot. | Fire. |
| Suu. | Water. |
| Bug. | Steam. |
| Chorus | |
| Kazan, kazan, kaynay ber, | Cauldron, cauldron, keep on boiling, |
| Kazan, kazan, kaynay ber. | Cauldron, cauldron, keep on boiling. |
| Chong enem et bıshırat, | My grandmother is cooking meat, |
| Men shaardy jylytam. | I am warming the city. |
References
- ^ Talas Music Chronicle (2021). The Sound of the Night Wave: tüntolk and the Rise of Mor-Wave, pp. 42–45.
- ^ Central Asian Music Review (2020). 'Mor-Wave and the Post-Soviet Electronic Synthesis in Central Asia.' Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 41–66.