Kazakhstan is mainly known as part of the former Soviet Union, maybe as well as the biggest interior or also riparian state of the Aral Sea.
A few people associate Kazakhstan with a wild lowlands and rough mountain ranges and this is very the Kazakh band ULYTAU starts off!
Somewhere settled between traditional rhythms, classical elements and hard rocking sounds ULYTAU can easily be compared with artists like Apocalyptica, Korpklaani or In Extremo. Even though the 6 Kazakh abdicate singing to emphasize the connection between traditional sounds of the instrument Dombra, classics like the violin and the piano or the original instrumentation of guitar, bass and drums, ULYTAUs songs leave nothing to be desired.
The band around violist Alua Makanova, consisting of ERzan Alimbetov (Dombra), Maxim Kitschigin (guitar), Roman Adonin (piano), Rafael Arslanov (drums) and Kanagat Abdukarymov (bass), was founded in 2001 by Kydryrali Bolmanov. From the beginning on they wanted to connect the western and eastern cultural groups, based on the background of modern rock music and classical pieces of Bach, Vivaldi, Paganini, Dauletkerey, Tattimbet or Tlendiev.
ULYTAU would like to further the Kazakh tradition of playing the Domba with their music, as well as the modern elements.
For the first time the group caused a stir in October 2001, when they achieved the title as the world champion at the World Championship for performing arts and left 86 countries behind. Announced by the two American organisations IPA and WATME the world championship illustrates the opportunity to see and judge the best artist of respective countries.
Performances at two big festivals were broadcasted by MTV Russia and furthermore ULYTAU won the price for the best Kazakh band in 2001 and with the title Kuyu Aday, written by composer Kurmangazy, the golddisk 2001.
A year later ULYTAU got voted for the best Kazakh instrumental-band and received the national award of the youth association.
This is how the track continued upwards for the Kazakh and performances during the World Exhibition in London (2003), in Shanghai (2004) as well as further concerts amongst others in Warsaw and Aberdeen followed. Afterwards tours through Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Japan, Vietnam and many other countries in the world followed and releases on a few very important compilations for ethnic music followed.
Now the new album of the Kazakh ethnic-rockers will shortly be released on iMusic Records and will cause quite a stir in our latitudes!