Sharing a very special playlist that came from a yearning to be guided by femme vocalists while ripping through California highways with the sun roof open. Some of these artists were raised in cultures that do not allow women to be singers or vocalists, some are the first to bring their channeling and heritage to mass audiences, and others catalyze melancholy and grief into rhythms of inspiration with a swiftness.
My absolute favorite track these days, and inspiration for this playlist, is Sainkho Namtchylak’s “Ritual Virtuality” from her album Stepmother City (2000). Listening to her entire discography, she morphs and embodies a wildly expansive vocal range and production style. Her story, like many of the others, is one of subversion, resilience and dedication to one’s purpose light years beyond conventional form.
Transmutation, in the alchemical sense, is to alter the nature of something into a higher form. During a time of great transition, I have felt uplifted and transfigured by these sounds and the stories of each artist. I’ve shared a glimpse of their stories below and hope these sounds guide you in some way, as they have for me.
Born and raised in Lhasa in the years of China’s Cultural Revolution when survival, not stardom, was the concern of most Tibetans, Yungchen gave little thought to being a performer. But there were signs. Her name, given to her by a Lama, means ‘Goddess of Melody and Song’.
Yungchen learned traditional songs from her mother and grandmother, but did not sing professionally in Tibet. In 1990, after losing family members to persecution and violence, the 22-year-old Yungchen fled to Dharamsala, India – the seat of Tibet’s government-in-exile. The harrowing journey over the Himalayas – a 1,000-mile, one-month trek – has been called ‘the longest and most perilous escape route on earth’. Many refugees who have taken that path have died on it. Thankfully, Yungchen escaped not only with her life but with a pure knowledge of Tibetan culture and song, untouched by Chinese censorship.
It was in Dharamsala that Yungchen first sang, as part of a troupe that performed in Tibetan refugee settlements in order to tell other exiles of the living conditions and situation in their homeland. There the power of her gift was apparent. She received the blessing of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and was encouraged by him and others to carry the gift of her voice and the message of Tibet to the world. On the journey that followed — to Sydney, Australia, then in performances all over the world, and finally, in 2000, to her new home in New York — Yungchen has done just that.
“In Buddhism, the ideal is to be of use, to actively contribute to things being better,” she says. “It’s very easy to sit isolated and talk about love and compassion, but to inject that into your work…that’s spiritual practice.”
~via Real World Records
She also has a foundation, One Drop of Kindness.
Umeko Ando was born in Fushiko Ainu village. She is a renowned expert of the mukkuri (the koukin, a Japanese mouth harp) and upopo (the traditional chanting of the Ainu). Immersed throughout her life with the culture, language and traditions of the Ainu, she has become an important successor for the Ainu culture of the Obihiro district.
~via lastfm
Sevara Nazarkhan is an Uzbek pop star who stands out for her expert handling of not only contemporary styles but Central Asian folk music as well. Her mastery and use of the Uzbek doutar (a two-stringed plucked shepherd's instrument dating back to the 15th century) establishes Nazarkhan as an accomplished world musician as well as a pop sensation. Sevara was brought up by two musically accomplished parents, her father a classically trained vocalist and her mother a music educator well-versed on string instruments. Sevara spent five years studying Uzbek folk music at the Tashkent State Conservatory between 1998 and 2003. During that time she performed with a variety of local groups, amassing something of a cult following. Her original compositions were a hit throughout Uzbekistan's underground urban culture, heard on local radio.
~via apple music
With her shaved head and seven-octave range, Sainkho Namtchylak would stand out on any stage. Add her particular mix of Tuvan throat-singing and avant-garde improvisation, and she becomes an unforgettable figure. The daughter of a pair of schoolteachers, she grew up in an isolated village on the Tuvan/Mongolian border, exposed to the local overtone singing—something that was generally reserved for the males; in fact, females were actively discouraged from learning it. She learned much of her traditional repertoire from her grandmother, and went on to study music at the local college, but she was denied professional qualifications. Quietly she studied the overtone singing, as well as the shamanic traditions of the region, before leaving for study further in Moscow (Tuva was, at that time, part of the U.S.S.R.).
Once Communism had collapsed, she moved to Vienna, making it her base, although she traveled widely, working in any number of shifting groups and recording a number of discs that revolved around free improvisation. It was definitely fringe music, although Namtchylak established herself very firmly as a fixture on that fringe. In 1997 she was the victim of an attack that left her in a coma for several weeks. Initially she thought it was some divine retribution for her creative hubris, and seemed to step back when she recorded 1998's Naked Spirit, which had new age leanings. However, by 2000 she seemed to have overcome that block, releasing Stepmother City, her most accessible work to date, where she seemed to really find her stride, mixing traditional Tuvan instruments and singing with turntables and effects.
~via allmusic.com
A choir comprising two dozen female singers from across the nation, the Bulgarian Voices--Angelite were largely unknown to the world at large prior to the fall of communism, but in the years since the Iron Curtain was lifted the ensemble toured the globe many times over, enchanting audiences with their singular blend of classical and folk traditions of the Balkan region.
~via singers.com
She was born Beverly Sainte-Marie in 1941 on the Piapot Cree Indian reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Saint-Marie has spent her whole life creating, and her artistry, humanitarian efforts, and Indigenous leadership have made her a unique force in the music industry. In 1969, she made one of the world’s first electronic vocal albums; in 1982 she became the only Indigenous person to win an Oscar; she spent five years on Sesame Street where she became the first woman to breastfeed on national television. She’s been blacklisted and silenced.
She penned “Universal Soldier,” the definitive anti-war anthem of the 20th century. She is an icon who keeps one foot firmly planted on both sides of the North American border, in the unsurrendered territories that compromise Canada and the USA.
~via spotify
From Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay, Nunavut), internationally celebrated artist Tanya Tagaq is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and bestselling author. A member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, Tagaq is an original disruptor, a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political and environmental change.
~via artist’s website
There is so much more about Tagaq’s story…I encourage people to read about her work. She is a vocal supporter of traditional Inuit sealing, Indigenous land rights and draws attention to murdered and missing Indigenous women.
Oumou Sangaré, (born February 25, 1968, Bamako, Mali), Malian singer and songwriter known for championing women’s rights through wassoulou, a style of popular music derived from vocal and instrumental traditions of rural southern Mali.
The earliest influence on Sangaré’s musical development was her mother, a migrant to Bamako from Mali’s Wassoulou region, where women had long figured prominently in traditional-music performance.
During her hiatuses from recording, Sangaré was by no means inactive. Rather, in addition to maintaining a regular performance schedule in Mali, she established a hotel and concert space in Bamako, set up an automobile-import business, started a farm, and worked for various humanitarian agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, for which she served as an official ambassador.
~via Encyclopedia Brittanica
Azam Ali was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up in India from the age of four in the small town of Panchgani, a beautiful hill station in the state of Maharashtra. There she attended an international co-educational boarding school for eleven years, all the while absorbing India's rich music and culture throughout her formative years. The course Azam would eventually choose in her life would be very much influenced by her fortuitous upbringing in a school which emphasized the importance of the arts and spirituality, and aimed through moral and academic excellence to produce promoters of social transformation imbued with the spirit of service to mankind. It is this objective that would take shape in Azam's music in the coming years.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 changed the course of Azam's life as it did for many Iranian's. Unwilling to bring her daughter back to a country filled with uncertainity, like many other Iranians, her mother decided to give up her home and life, and together they moved to America in 1985 when Azam was just a teenager.~via discogs
Meredith Monk (b. November 20, 1942, New York City) is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music-theater works, films and installations. Recognized as one of the most unique and influential artists of our time, she is a pioneer in what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance.” Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound, discovering and weaving together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which there are no words.
~via artist’s website
Daichin Tana is an ethnic Mongol singer-songwriter from Qinghai, China. She is the lead singer of the band HAYA. Daichin Tana’s mother was well known locally as a Mongol folk musician; she supported Daichin Tana’s interest in music from a young age. Daichin Tana studied vocal performance at Minzu University of China in Beijing. Daichin Tana joined the band HAYA (Mongolian: ᠬᠠᠶᠠᠭᠠ; Mongolian: Хаяа; ‘sometimes’ simplified Chinese: 哈雅乐团; traditional Chinese: 哈雅樂團; pinyin: hāyǎ yuètuán ‘band Haya’) in 2006. The band produces world music, using Mongolian folk music as its basis.
~via wikipedia
Julianna Barwick (she/her) is a Los Angeles based composer, vocalist, and producer who makes deep, reflective compositions rooted in the human voice.
~via Spectra Creative Agency
Ghawgha Taban is an Afghan vocalist whose single is a challenge to the Taliban in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. My mother recounts hearing war songs in Afghanistan that would enliven people to fight, and this reminds her of those. The lyrics in “Kiss You (Mebosamat)” are about fearlessness and tenderness in the face of violence. Plus the lo-fi recording of the track is ٩(˘◡˘)۶
Ghawgha’s IG here.
Kitka is an American women’s vocal arts ensemble inspired by traditional songs and vocal techniques from Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Founded in 1979 as an offshoot of the Westwind International Folk Ensemble, Kitka began as a grassroots group of amateur singers from diverse ethnic and musical backgrounds who shared a passion for the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation, and resonant strength of traditional Eastern European women’s vocal music.
With an overarching mission of cultivating local and global community through song. Kitka’s activities include an Oakland-based home series of concerts and vocal workshops, leadership of community choirs, regional, national, and international touring, programs in the schools, recording, publication, and broadcast projects, artist residencies, commissioning original works, community service, and adventuresome collaborations. Kitka’s wide-ranging performance, teaching, and recording activities have exposed millions to the haunting beauty of the ensemble’s exquisite and unusual repertoire. With deep ties to Balkan, Slavic and Caucasian lands, Kitka has performed, taught, and conducted cultural exchange activities in Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia, as well as in communities throughout the USA, Canada, and beyond.
~via ensemble’s website
DakhaBrakha — is world-music quartet from Kyiv, Ukraine. Reflecting fundamental elements of sound and soul, Ukrainian «ethnic chaos» band DakhaBrakha, create a world of unexpected new music.
The name DakhaBrakha…means «give/take» in the old Ukrainian language.
At the crossroads of Ukrainian folklore and theatre their musical spectrum is intimate then riotous, plumbing the depths of contemporary roots and rhythms, inspiring «cultural and artistic liberation».
~ via quartet’s website
Aïsha Devi uses her voice to break through the din of our current musical moment. Following early bedroom experiments in electronic and dance music in the 2000s, the Swiss-Nepalese singer and producer went through a personal transformation that led her to leave the past behind and embrace her birth name. In the early 2010s she set up the Danse Noire label with some friends and began to explore the potentials of electronic music in combination with meditation, philosophy and the scientific properties of frequencies. Using her voice, smeared with delay and reverb of unearthly proportions, and the Roland JP-8080 – a synth most synonymous with trance music – as primary tools, Devi has been writing and performing music that aims to break down barriers and induce transcendence in her audience.
~via Red Bull Music Academy
Tanya Tagaq has written a book, as well! :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_Tooth