TURKMENISTAN • SONGS OF BAKHSHI WOMEN

Turkmens, born nomads, have an obvious taste for the arts, whether in weaving, poetry or music. Poetry and music are performed by minstrels who were once itinerant, the bakhshi. Until very recently, the bakhshi were exclusively male. Today, women seized this art and some of them are invited to major Turkmen annual festivals. This is true for the singers of this album. There is however no musical incompatibility between men and women in that they sing in the same high and tensed register, enriched with several kinds of vocal ornements which imitate animal cries. This music carries a dramatic intensity, an abrupt force, a power of binding evocation.