K-SPACE

Gendos Chamzyryn ................... Tuva

Tim Hodgkinson ........................ England

Ken Hyder ................................ Scotland

In the Altai

K-Space at bear mountain, Tuva

K-Space lead singer Gendos Chamzyryn is a master shamanic musician from Tuva. And with Sainkho Namtchylak he's the top throat-singing innovator in Siberia.

He is an expert in the deep-vocal Kargiraa style of overtone-singing and he plays a variety of traditional Tuvan instruments including the dungur shaman drum.

Gendos also a master of the Tuvan stone-sculpting and wood-carving tradition.

For this trip into shamanic trance-beat, Gendos is joined by sound-art manipulators Tim Hodgkinson - total lap guitar, beat-box and reeds. And Ken Hyder - drums, smeaze-box and deep-space vocals.

They teamed up with Gendos on one of their Radical Transcultural Initiatives programmes in southern Siberia, presenting experimental art in remote rural communities.

Tim explained: "We were leaning about in a derelict porch in Kyzyl, Tuva when this geezer jumped out of a car and presented Ken with a shaman drum.

"It all just happened after that."

K-Space takes its name from an time-machine invention by the late Russian astrophysicist Nicolai Kozyrev.

K-Space welds together an ancient time continuum and a hard-edged electro-presence of deep sham-beat.

What they said: -

"More than a concert - a total ritual gesture of extraordinary intensity."
La Vanguaria, Spain

"The hurricane seemed to catch you in the mountains and roar in all voices, threatening the petty man. The most susceptible men were even shocked."
Barnaul Gazette, Siberia

"The musicians communicated directly to the audience with an intense performance that erased frontiers between radically different styles."
El Pais, Spain

"K-Space is a unique trio, an experience truly one-of-a-kind. We are taken elsewhere. Nothing can prepare you for the intensity and otherworldliness of this album."
Francois Couture reviewing K-Space's Bear Bones CD for All Music Guide

"Who knows, but that here we may be catching glimpses of a whole new direction - not just cultural, but philosophical - for improvisation?"
Bear Bones review in Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD

"This is the wild side of shamanism, which makes no concession to fashion or marketing - improvisation and ecstasy are the key concepts."
Arjan van Sorge reviewing K-Space's Bear Bones CD in Soft Secrets, Holland

"This extraordinary album certainly suggests suspension of rational norms, resulting in uncanny music that is beguilingly strange yet unnervingly familiar. At times it locks into regular incantatory rhythms; elsewhere sounds are combined according to some ritual that is inexplicable to the uninitiated. It's out there in Kozyrev space where the time flow assists telepathy. Get mystified. Get excited. There's laughter in there too."
Julian Cowley, reviewing K-Space's Bear Bones CD in The Wire

"K-Space's Bear Bones is one of those rare beasts, a productive and respectful collaboration between western musicians and those from another culture. It sees UK improvisors Tim Hodgkinson (ex-Henry Cow) and Ken Hyder teaming up with Tuvan shaman Gendos Chamzyryn, whom they met on an extended expedition to explore the sonic aspects of shamanism in the mid-90s. Recorded in Siberia and elsewhere between 1996 and 2001, it shows that Hodgkinson and Hyder's groundwork paid off.

"On Bear Bones they neither co-opt Chamzyrn as exotic garnish to their existing music, nor do they go native and attempt to play totally in Tuvan style. Instead, the music takes account of the traditions each musician brings to the collaboration and fuses them to produce something new in which the musicians improvise with real understanding of each other's musical culture.

"It also carries with it some sense of the experiences Hyder and Hodkinson had of the extremely strange fringe technology of Kozyrev's Mirrors at a research institute in Siberia. An abstruse device which I will not pretend to understand, Kozyrev's Mirrors can reputedly warp space and time and induce telepathic experiences akin to shamanic journeys. What is amazing is how well Bear Bones works.

"By turns scary, humorous, rhythmic and abstract, it is a truly stunning piece of work, unique, powerful and infused with a deep sense of shamanic otherness."
Ian Simmons reviewing Bear Bones for nthposition

Here's a rough translation of a review of a K-Space concert in Barnaul, Siberia. It highlights the different way Siberians listen to music.

The Hurricane at the "Melnitsa"

There was written quite a lot about the forthcoming concert of the band "K-Space", comprising, on the one hand, the professional musicians, who have already played different styles and thoroughly studied heathenish and shamanism and, on the other hand, the ethnic musician, the representative of the nation where a shaman is frequently met.

By the way, the interest was also arisen by the quite scientific underling cause of the name of the band. All the respectable media provide us with the information of the mystic "Kozyrev' space" which the name of the "shaman" project "K-Space" came from. The concert held on the 6th of August did not reduce the mystery.

The musicians, after 10 day's expedition in the Altai mountains, conducted by The Healthy Living Association, were full of impression and new ideas. Their performance did not resemble the common programs, everything was smooth and alike. The true improvisation, close to the shaman's mystery was reflected in the sounds.

Gendos, dressed in national vestments, playing the unknown instruments seemed to be the supplement to the whole. The hurricane seemed to catch you in the mountains and roar in all voices, threatening the petty man. The most susceptible men were even shocked.

Ken and Tim improvised too to the utmost extent, making strange sounds with the help of usual instruments. Less of all they paid attention to the music accuracy - the main thing was to create a good spirit.

Quite possible that being in trance people can be carried away even in the past, predict the future and cure. It is unknown whether it is good or bad, but it is impossible to reproduce the concert once more, as we can not eat the cake and have it. You can be close to the bygone state only after having listened to the music.

K-Links:-

Tim Hodgkinson on shamanism and western music

Background on K#Nicolai Kozyrev (right)

Ken Hyder's website

ken@hyder.demon.co.uk

K-SPACE FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR

K-Space's first Euro-Tour comprised dates in France, Germany, Austria and Italy.

At an oper air gig near Munich in blistering heat, Harald Ott took some pictures of the soundcheck, the concert and a little apshenia (Russian for hanging out) - which went on long into the night. If you look closely you might see some special fuel for this activity in the last picture.

Drum and Space Kyzyl, Tuva 2005

In August 2005 K-Space was in Tuva - where Gendos lives - and we did some gigs with an extended Drum and Space version of the group.

We augmented the band with Sergei and Tepan, two shamans from the Adyg Eeren Shaman Centre, and with a Russian traditional vocal group Oktai, and igil-player Radik Dulush.

The music was pretty wild, and free and it was the first time the shamans made a transition to the concert stage.

Here's a rough translation of a review of a K-Space concert in Barnaul, Siberia. It highlights the different way Siberians listen to music.

The Hurricane at the "Melnitsa"

Gendos, dressed in national vestments, playing the unknown instruments seemed to be the supplement to the whole. The hurricane seemed to catch you in the mountains and roar in all voices, threatening the petty man. The most susceptible men were even shocked.

Ken and Tim improvised too to the utmost extent, making strange sounds with the help of usual instruments. Less of all they paid attention to the music accuracy - the main thing was to create a good spirit.

Drum and Space Kyzyl, Tuva 2005

Pix above and below by Carole Pegg

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